Free Will: Why Sam Harris needs to read more Philosophy

In his book ‘Free Will’ (2012) Sam Harris offers up the conclusion that “free will is an illusion”. I can’t say that I’m surprised given the fact that many neuroscientists have offered up similar responses to the free will problem (Libet 83′, 99′, 01′, 03′, among others) . But, falling in line with Libet and other neuroscientists that have made similar claims, Harris refuses to confront many of the arguments that philosophers doing work on free will have offered. Here, I’ll offer some reasons why we should reject the notion of free will that Harris offers us, and, the notion that we are left with is in fact a notion of free will, at least the sort of free will that we need to have moral responsibility and to justify ascriptions of praise and blame.

Sam Harris suggests that free will is an all or nothing sort of concept, you either have it or you don’t. I argue that this is not the right way to think about free will. Rather, like many philosophers doing work in this area have stated (the list is quite extensive), it’s more likely that free will comes in degrees. Mitigating factors can limit our ability to act “freely”, such as various mental disorders and external factors, however, to claim that free will is an all or nothing sort of concept seems to miss both the folk intuition as to the importance of free will (see Nahmias, Morris, Turner, Nadelhoffer 05′) and our ordinary conceptions of its role in grounding moral responsibility and justifying our conventions of punishment, dealings in relationships, desert, and conscious experience. Harris, like many others that think free will is an illusion, assumes that in order to claim that we have ‘FREE WILL’ (capital letters for emphasis) we (1)”need to be aware of all the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to have complete control over those factors” and that (2)”free will requires that we could have behaved differently than we did in the past”. But, anyone familiar with even a fraction of the exorbitant amount of philosophical literature regarding Harry Frankfurt’s ‘Principle of Alternative Possibilities’ (PAP) would see that this latter assumption is dubious. The former assumption (1) is also a highly debated topic in philosophical journals, and, some argumentation is needed to support these assumptions that Harris takes as a given. But, what is free will according to Harris? Well, Harris never explicitly gives us a definition, but, what he does give us is what Eddie Nahmias has called “nebulous x-factors“.

To reiterate what I found to be a fine breakdown of Harris’ argument by Nahmias: (A) Free Will requires X; (B) X is impossible; (C) Therefore, Free Will is impossible, or “an illusion”. Harris offers different inputs for X throughout his short (13,000 word) book such as (1)”having an extra part that transcends our brain”; (2) being free to “do that which doesn’t occur to me to do”; (3) being unpredictable in principle; (4) not being beholden to the laws of nature; and that (5) “we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions”. After claiming that 1-5 are impossible he concludes that free will is impossible, but, he’s not actually warranted in claiming that we do not have free will, he’s only warranted in claiming that the sort of free will implied by the above mentioned x-factors MIGHT be impossible. Many don’t believe that 1-5 are needed for us to have free will, and even for those that are inclined to think that the more reasonable x-factors (4 and 5) are needed to claim that we do have free will, there are robust philosophical arguments available that support alternative understandings of both the laws of nature (4) and what role our conscious mind (5) plays in the neural firings that lead to thoughts and action. Let’s take a closer look at Harris’ claims.

When analyzing the data drawn from numerous neuroscientific studies Harris assumes that the data clearly states that “your brain has already determined what you will do”, but, as Al Mele has forcefully argued in his book ‘Free Will and Luck’ (2006) that same data has a far better (or, at worst, equally plausible) interpretation of the readiness potential (RP) that Libet (and Harris) claims is telling of our brains actually deciding to press a button before the electromyogram shows relevant muscular motion to begin pressing the button. To summarize Mele, Libet (and now Harris) has no good reason to claim that what they are seeing in FMRI scans and other instruments used in RP experiments are in fact one’s decision or intention (or ACTUAL thought of either) to press a button (or perform any action for that matter) before the button has been pressed and not something like “an urge” to press them or perform an action. It should also be noted here that the neuroscientific experiments have not been able to predict with more than (roughly) 60% success if a button would in fact be pushed. Before closing, let me briefly explain why many do not take 1-5 that seriously when thinking about free will.

Why should we reject these x-factors as explaining what it means to have free will? Well, if we think that free will is, to quote Eddie Nahmias in his NYT article ” a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure.” then free will is still viable even in the picture that Harris has presented. This surely sounds more like Free Will than the notions that Harris would have us consider. Harris’ concept of Free Will implies something like a Cartesian soul or, the infamous “ghost in the machine”. The concept need not be that spooky.

If we revisit Harris’ claim that “free will is an illusion” in light of the above definition of free will then we see that Harris is wrong and free will is alive and well. No neuroscientific study, surely none that have been conducted thus far, has proven that this concept is gone. And, for those who think that the above mentioned definition of free will is not the working definition of many then I ask you to read the study conducted on the folk intuitions regarding free will entitled “Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about Free Will and Moral Responsibility” in Philosophical Psychology 18: 561-84.

As Nahmias pointed out in his review of Harris’ book and as I’ll reiterate here, it’s ironic that Sam Harris_neuroscientist_ makes arm-chair assertions about what is meant by the concept of free will. It’s ironic because it’s usually scientists who levy criticisms against philosophers for making assertions in a similar vein.

All of this could be avoided if Harris and other scientists would just do as I suggested in my title and READ MORE PHILOSOPHY!But, then again, more radical interpretations of the data tend to sell more books. I’m not suggesting that Harris curtailed his interpretation to fit this mold, but, by failing to wrestle with the piles of philosophical literature written on the topic he was acting academically irresponsible in making his claims.

Love the article. So – let me try to get the gist right here, and correct me if I’m wrong… Harris’ main mistake is to require of the free will concept either things that it’s fairly obvious we can’t have or things that it’s in-principle impossible to have… And he rigs the game by ignoring the gradations of free will that many philosophers have suggested… Have I got it right?

I haven’t read Harris… and this post makes me think that I ought to read Mele first – it’s the second time this month he’s come up.

I would suggest reading the linked NYT Op-ED piece by Nahmias. It’s short and to the point as some quick background and to better understand the compatibilist conception of free will.

The Mele book is long (220 pages or so) but the chapter dealing directly with the neuroscientific data is the focus of chapter 2 which only runs about 20 pages or so. It’s heavy reading with lots of neuroscientific jargon, but, it’s well worth the read.

Also, Mark Balaguer has a great book out ‘Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem'(2010). He deals directly with the same data that Harris, Mele, and Libet refer to in their work. He’s a Libertarian that concludes that the free will question boils down to an empirical question about whether neural events in our heads are causally undetermined in a certain specific way. And, since there is no good evidence as to whether the neural events are undetermined in the way that’s required by his argument, then we must leave open the question of free will.

Personally, I like Mele’s book! It’s a detailed account of the science and where the interpretation that we don’t have free will goes wrong.

Thanks for the reply, Justin. I’m a big fan of Nahmias’ article in the Times. I assigned it last semester to my ethics classes. I’ve added Balaguer’s book to my Amazon wish list (this happens a lot when I read your blog).

Have you read Dennett’s ‘Elbow Room’ (84)? I believe he makes an argument along the lines of the one you’re making – that arguments about free will often rig the game with an implausible definition of what it would mean to have free will. That is a pretty good read, though he’s not exactly an analytic-philosopher archetype – his work requires the reader to do some analysis and prune through his easy-to-read but casual writing style.

Great idea to incorporate Nahmias’ article in class!I may steal that idea.

I’ve read Dennett’s Elbow Room, but it was about 3 years ago (and by “read” I mean I skimmed the main arguments). Thanks for the reference, I’ll give it another look.

I talked to Dennett a couple of times last year about this in person and we seem to share similar takes on it. Dennett thinks this is because “we both grew up in Massachusetts and have a keen eye for things like this”, I think, it’s because compatibilism is the only tenable position when trying to justify (in terms of desert) our practices of blame, praise, and sometimes punishment, but, what do I know?

He gave a talk at the University of Calgary last year and we were able to talk a bit at dinner about it. Also, he was the keynote speaker (w/Robert Audi) at a conference I gave a talk at least year in Massachusetts. He’s really easy to talk to, and, though he’s focused more on religion these days, he stays fairly up-to-date on current free will literature.

Yes, I’ve read a bit on the distinction between being morally responsible and being held morally responsible and have read suggestions and arguments that favor separating the two concepts. Shoemaker, Angela Smith, and Scanlon have espoused views like this. Michael Mckenna in his new book “Conversation and Responsibility” (2012) touches on a similar thread. He doesn’t think that basic desert is required for moral responsibility (contra Pereboom 2009). I’m not wholly convinced that desert can be absent for us to justly ascribe moral responsibility, I guess I find Pereboom somewhat convincing on this (see “Free Will, Love and Anger” (2009)). But, yeah, you’re right, definitely a different (but related) discussion. Fun nonetheless!

“if we think that free will is, to quote Eddie Nahmias in his NYT article ” a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure.” This surely sounds more like Free Will than the notions that Harris would have us consider. Harris’ concept of Free Will implies something like a Cartesian soul or, the infamous “ghost in the machine”. The concept need not be that spooky.”

While the ability to exercise these capacities is certainly an important part of our cognitive abilities, and while I, and likely many others, might be willing to agree that these may be necessary conditions, this still does not seem sufficient to ground moral responsibility and praise/blame from the incompatibilist view. One still has not escaped the background worry of determinism (which I take to be assumed by your compatibilist arguments). That what we imagine as future courses of action, what our deliberations end up deciding upon, how well we can resist giving in to competing desires, and just the types of thoughts we have in the first place and what sort of person we are..all these were completely unavoidable, and never “up to us” or in our control.

Frankfurt is hardly convincing, and intuitions should not really matter here. The question is whether we have a sort of “free will” consistent with moral responsibility. So, all that needs to be done is to pick a definition, and then we can have the argument about whether 1) we have this, and 2) whether possessing it is sufficient for moral responsibility. Whether the masses unreflectively think that is what “free will” truly is, is irrelevant.

I and many others might be willing to agree that the “spooky” versions of free will, that would seem to avoid the spectre of determinism, are not possible, and thus we don’t have the sort of deep free will many in the history of philosophy have thought necessary for moral responsibility. We might also be willing to agree that the definition you are attempting to defend, or something like it, is as close to “free will” as we can get. That doesn’t mean that it is sufficient for moral responsibility, or that it is “all the freedom worth wanting”. I don’t think Harris is necessarily lacking in exposure to the literature (he might not have read the books/articles YOU think are most important, but he is solidly grounded in the basic literature)…just that he continues to see the problems with moral responsibility on the non-spooky views offered, as do I.

Well, if he has a problem with the non-spooky conceptions then why does he point to the spooky notions of free will? Offer the notions that are less spooky and argue why those aren’t sufficient for free will, don’t focus on the spooky stuff. It seems like a straw-man to me.

Also, if he was solidly grounded in the literature he would have referenced SEMINAL pieces in the field which he doesn’t do.

I’d guess because the “non spooky” definitions of free will themselves are subject to prblems of the spooky definitions of free will.

I found this an interesting article. But I think it adresses a different type of question about the same subject. As such I think it adds to the debateof the topic, rather tan actually disproving Harris.
If Harris wants to evaluate spooky free will, then he can do that.

Jeremy, you say “Frankfurt is hardly convincing, and intuitions should not really matter here”.

With regards to Frankfurt, I never claimed that he was convincing, but, his paper did (and continues to) generate discussions about PAP and if it’s needed for moral responsibility. Harris speaks as if it’s obvious that it’s needed. If it was that obvious the debate regarding PAP would not be as lively as it is, and, if there is an argument that shows the conclusive merits of that argument (whatever it is) please point me to that paper so I can check it out. My point in bringing in Frankfurt was to show how unsettled conditions like the ability to do otherwise really are, and, since they are unsettled then how does he disprove free will under the assumption that such an ability is needed?

Intuitions ABSOLUTELY matter here. In order to give a definition of what we mean by free will Harris himself is relying on his arm chair intuition of what he thinks people mean by the term free will. Harris is giving us an argument based on his intuition, he’s defining conditions that HE THINKS must be met in order for us to have free will, are those not based on intuitions? I didn’t read any arguments by him for why we should accept those (spooky conditions) and not others as the salient conditions needed to hold one morally responsible. Failing to provide those arguments suggests to me that he either is not aware of them or doesn’t have an argument against them.

Further, if he’s as well-read as you’ve claimed (or at least suggested), then why didn’t he mention these other definitions and argue why they aren’t sufficient and why we should accept his spooky x-factors as constitutive of free will? I found it quite pompous of him to write a 13,000 word book and imply that he has solved the problem of free will without mention of heavily favored (within our discipline) compatibilist notions of free will and assume that the debates about the conditions are settled. Academically irresponsible, anyway. It’s like me writing a book about a topic (say ‘How football is played’) without mentioning the game as it’s played in the U.S. which is where it is predominantly played.

In order to give a definition of what we mean by free will Harris himself is relying on his arm chair intuition of what he thinks people mean by the term free will.

It’s sad that this was unnecessary. Experimental philosophy has already demonstrated that people largely agree with the moral reasoning of Compatibilism, and disagree with the reasoning behind hard determinism, fatalism and incompatibilism.

PAP is also a silly requirement. While we gain some notion of absolute “freedom”, we lose all meaningful notion of “will”. If X is some system capable of making a different choice in identical conditions, then X is just a random variable. That’s hardly a compelling candidate for free will.

If people truly think something like PAP is needed, it’s some informal metric of different outcomes given “sufficiently similar” circumstances, not the perfectly rewound/deterministic PAP Harris supposes.

A lot of the problem here comes down to definitions (as is often the case). I like to take a practical, scientific approach rather than a philosophical one. I once debated a philosopher on this and he couldn’t get past the idea that we must have free will otherwise we wouldn’t have morality. I’m more interested in what is true rather than what would be nice if it was true.

Anyway, here’s how I see it. Say an individual made a particular decision under certain circumstances. Could he have made any other decision? If we take him back to exactly the same circumstances would he make the same decision again?

I think the answer is he must. The decision is based on biochemical processes in the brain which will be identical the second time around therefore the same decision would be made. Therefore strictly there is no free will. On the other hand, the complexity of the processes (plus the uncertainty of quantum effects) is such that we seem to have free will.

(1) – You say “I like to take a practical, scientific approach rather than a philosophical one”.

The approaches need not be either/or. My take is heavily influenced by science, and, I think a compatibilist conclusion is far more “practical” than an incompatibilist conclusion.

(2) – You also say “I’m more interested in what is true rather than what would be nice if it was true.”

So am I! I think you’re bringing in some inaccurate assumptions as to what you think philosophy is doing in these debates. I’d like for you to maybe fill in the details here. How is philosophy not “more interested in the truth rather than what would be nice to be true”? I’m sorry, but, it’s going to take some knock down argument for me to embrace the conclusion that the way I experience the world is not “up-to-me” in some sense or other. Sure, I am quite limited in what I might see as a viable action in any given instance (environmental factors, limited previous experiences, epistemic limitations, etc.) but this does not mean that I don’t have a choice (maybe to act or not to act). For me, that’s enough.

(3) – Your claim that a decision is “based on biochemical processes in the brain which will be identical the second time around therefore the same decision would be made.” is contentious, but, what’s even more contentious is your conclusion that “therefore strictly there is no free will.”

First, what do you mean that decisions are based on biochemical processes in the brain? Also, isn’t it possible that reflection, a purely mental event, plays some part in the causal chain? And, if it does, how can science prove that that mental event was determined? Even if it could (big if), that science is very far from coming to fruition, and, until it does, it remains open that free will is possible. I think you hint at something like this in your last lines, and rightfully so.

1. Traditionally philosophy hasn’t been particularly concerned with empirical support for its theories. At least that’s the impression I get from my limited experience. I realise that doesn’t apply to all philosophers but if philosophy had an entirely scientific approach then it would be science.

2. I was talking about one discussion I had with one philosopher. Sorry if it looked like I was criticising philosophy in general. While I’m certainly not an expert I do enjoy and value philosophy.

3a. If brain activity and thought isn’t the result of biochemical processes then what is it? I have never seen evidence any other process could be involved.

3b. If you support 3a then 3b seems to naturally follow. If thought is the result of biochemical processes then it should theoretically be entirely predictable and if it is then free will doesn’t exist. I agree that predicting the outcome of though is currently impossible and might always be so but that doesn’t change the fact that it is’t entirely free.

To (1) – Traditionally, strictly speaking, philosophy was science. Philosophers theorized about what the world was like and always used empirical evidence to support their theories, their instruments were far less sophisticated but they were engaged in science nonetheless. This goes as far back as we can track. Aristotle, etc. So, it WAS science. NOW, it’s still dealing with scientific concepts and tries to explain scientific/natural phenomena. Sure there are philosophers that don’t reference science as much as they should, but, the theories that many are espousing are more often than not rooted in scientific claims.

To (2) – fair enough. I’m no scientific expert either, I just wanted to be clear that philosophy is not some “in the clouds” sort of discipline as many often think.

To (3a) – Isn’t it possible that brain activity and thought isn’t the result of biochemical processes but causes (or at least affects) the biological processes? We don’t have a robust enough understanding of consciousness for us to make the claim that thought is the end result of determined physical processes. Even if thought it purely physical (which I think is right) it doesn’t follow that it’s determined. So, if I am determined to have thought _____x______ it does not follow that my reflection about thought______x______ must be “act on it” or, “not act on it”. It seems that both options are available to me. For more on these types of cases I recommend Mark Balaguer’s book “Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem” he calls such cases “torn-decisions” or Richard Swinburn’s “Free Will and Modern Science” which has a slue of articles on just this notion. Some arguing in your favor and others not so much. In other words, the issue hasn’t been settled by science, not yet at least. In order to claim that we are not entirely free we must deal with what we mean by “free”. If by free you mean the ability to do whatever you want, then no, that’s an impossible notion of freedom. But, if by free we mean something like “acting on our own reflective reasons” then that is not absent even in light of all the scientific research. And, most people think it means something like I’ve mentioned (see the Nahmias, Nadelhoffer X-Phi study that I referenced in the post).

To (3b) – Sure, the absence of complete predictability does not mean that things are not determined, but that’s the compatibilist claim, that even if the world is determined we can still have free will, at minimum (see John Martin Fischer’s semi-compatabilism) we have the type of free will that is needed to justly hold one morally responsible for their actions. That’s my biggest concern with the free will problem.

To set the the argument the way that Harris does (Free Will = X and X= something impossible like the ability to choose whatever, whenever) then sure we don’t have it. But, to ground moral responsibility, I’m not convinced that we need such a strong account of free will. And, he claims that the notion (X) that he gives is what most people think free will is is also faulty and very “arm-chair” like ( a criticism usually levied against philosophers, ironically), especially since there have been studies to actually get clear on what every day people think about free will.

1. Yes, I understand that philsophy and science were hard to distinguish originally but I think the modern version of science which has emerged since the Enlightenment (with its emphasis on empiricism) is more distinct.

2. OK, so we agree that philosophy has value, we can move on from there I guess!

3a. It’s possible there is more to thought than biochemistry, but if there is I would like to know what it might be. Until we can come up with some reasonable option for that we must assume there is nothing. I agree we don’t have a good explanation for consciousness but every study I know of concerning the subject confirms that biochemistry is the source of all cognitive processes. I also completely agree that free will is far from a settled question, I just tend to favour the idea that there is none because that’s what the best current evidence points to. Yes, it depends on the definition of “free”, that’s why I used a specific idea in my original comment (making a different decision when the original conditions are identical) as a definition.

3b. This is getting back to the definition of “free” again. Is it not widely accepted that compatibilists simply re-define free will so that it is compatible with determinism? That always seems like cheating to me! And you don’t need to worry about holding people responsible for their actions: you have no free will so you can’t really make that decision!

1. Of course a more modern version of science emerged, I take it that most philosophy has as well. Most philosophy (especially phil mind, phil of psych, moral psych, free will, metaphysics broadly construed, and even epistemology) has advanced to incorporate the advances of the new modern science. We just theorize about the modern concepts being discussed and usually with a bit more rigor (IMO).

2. Sounds good.

3a. I’m not saying that there is necessarily more to thought than brain chemistry, all I’m saying is that the phenomenological feeling of a mental state is not determined because the chemistry that is going on doesn’t determine one’s experience of the state. Also, since the science is far from telling I err on the side of what it feels like to me (and by others). It feels like I can stop myself from acting even on a determined impulse. So, if there is no science to negate that then why shouldn’t I continue thinking I have a choice, at least a minimal one? I think concepts should be eliminated if and only if there is no basis for them to exist. It sure feels like I have free will, and, there is no science that negates that fact (at least for the sort of free will I think is necessary for MR).

3b. The claim that compatibilists are redefining the concept of free will is about as wide spread as the claim that incompatibilists are defining it in a way that seems to rig the game, so to speak, with an implausible definition of what it would mean to have free will (see comments between Steve and I). So, as you see the compatibilist as “cheating”, I see the same with regards to the incompatibilist. At least compatibilists are working with a definition that the common folk are amenable to, which doesn’t seem to be the case with the variety of incompatibilist variety (again, see the x-phi study referenced in the post).

1. Yes, I have come across some philosophers who take a more scientific and rigorous approach but I still find a lot taking a “traditional” approach and thinking that quoting Schopenhauer is sufficient!

3ai. You seem to be initially saying that you don’t think there is anything beyond the biochemistry yet in the next sentence you sort of say there is! If cognition isn’t solely determined by biochemical processes then what else is there? Until you can say we really need to stick with the biochem!

3aii. And basing your theories on what “feels right” is dangerous: the flat Earth and geocentric universe were based on that sort of thinking.

3aiii. We shouldn’t totally eliminate any idea until it can be disproved (if that is even possible) but I think our interim theories should only include what we have good evidence for, otherwise we could base them on all sorts of unproven stuff.

3b. Yes, I take your point on the definition of “free” being manipulated by both sides. Maybe that’s where the real problem lies. Again I go back to my “thought experiment” involving the possibility of a person’s thoughts being different if the conditions are identical.

1. The fact that you referenced Schopenhauer indicates tat you’re focused on continental philosophy and not analytic. I consider myself an analytic philosopher and most of us are cognizant of the intersection between science and philosophy (And we make up roughly 70% of the field).

3ai. I’ve never said that there was anything beyond physicalism nor have I eschewed biochemistry as being indicative of mental events. I’m only suggesting that reflection and/or certain phenomenological associations accompanied by biochemical reactions in the brain might not be determined by those physical processes. If they were then we would have much more accuracy than we do. And, even if the phenomenological experience were determined (BIG IF) I’m still not convinced that my reaction to that felt experience (how I internalize the experience) is determined. Reflection is almost impossible to study scientifically so I’m not sure we’ll ever be warranted in claiming that biochemical occurrences in the brain NECESSITATE specific actions or that they NECESSITATE specific internal feelings.

3aii. I’m not basing my feeling on what “feels right”. I’m simply appealing to a common intuition held by most humans. It surely feels like I’m making a decision when I choose to act, especially with regards to what Philosopher Mark Balaguer has called torn-decisions. And, if the science is only implying that I may not be in control when performing mundane tasks like pressing a button I’m going to need a bit more than that before I eschew the internal experiences that it seems all have when making torn-decisions. This is far from holding onto dogmatic claims such as “the world is flat….seeeee?”.

3aiii. I agree! And, I have good experiential evidence that I have free choices at certain times. Are all of my actions “free” in any meaningful way? No. But it sure seems as if some of them are.

3b. If the conditions are identical and someone acts the same I don’t see how this precludes free will. Again it comes down to how we’re defining free will. Your example seems to be wanting randomness? But why does randomness give us free will? Let’s put some substance to your example. I’m at the alter and I have a choice, to marry or not to marry my fiance. I only have free will if we reverse time and I choose to marry her all but one of those times? It seems that as long as I have the ability or the opportunity to not marry her and my decision to marry her is my own based on all of the past+ reflection on the action, then for me that’s enough to say that I’m free. If we rewinded the clock and did it over and over and one time I chose not to marry her this wouldn’t mean I have free will anymore than if I chose to marry her every time. All that would show is that randomness or indeterminism is live but not necessarily free will, per say.

“If the conditions are identical and someone acts the same I don’t see how this precludes free will. Again it comes down to how we’re defining free will.”

Yes, OJB42 seems to agree with the definition that free will means that given the same initial conditions, one could have chosen differently. I concur with this definition. Any other definition (notably different) doesn’t address the crux of the issue, which is whether or not we have any freedom at all in our choice (free from the laws of physics, and their fundamentally deterministic or random nature).

It is clear that randomness or determinism preclude free will in any valuable sense of the word. Yes, we still “make choices” in the sense that we have memory banks containing previously recognized patterns of information in order for us to make more informed decisions in the future by better knowing the consequences of our actions. However, a robot can be programmed to do the same. A robot can be built such that it can learn new information (just like us) and make better decisions regarding its behavior to accomplish some set of goals better or worse. However, the ultimate goals are a result of its hardware, initial programming, and modified programming (if it is built to be able to reprogram itself), combined with whatever sensory data it accumulates from its environment. All of these factors are out of the robots control, and in any case, will you or another with your reasoning grant that a robot can have free will?

“It seems that as long as I have the ability or the opportunity to not marry her and my decision to marry her is my own based on all of the past+ reflection on the action, then for me that’s enough to say that I’m free.”

But this isn’t free in any classical sense of the term “free will”. Furthermore, you don’t have the ability to “not marry her” if the conditions are exactly the same as before when you did marry her. If you did have this ability, then you managed to circumvent the laws of physics, or the change was a result of the same initial conditions with a random element involved (some brain state slightly changed due to quantum randomness), but randomness doesn’t give you freedom either. The bottom line is, we don’t have free will because the laws of physics govern everything (deterministically or randomly) that occurs in the brain or anywhere else in the universe. To think otherwise is to negate naturalism and replace it with supernaturalism which has no scientific support or basis. To redefine free will such that we can have it even though the processes of the brain are governed by the laws of physics simply misses the point, the crux of the debate. Sam Harris is pretty much pointing out the obvious. It’s sad that so many people disagree with him, since what he claims is only supported by the scientific data.

“Any other definition (notably different) doesn’t address the crux of the issue, which is whether or not we have any freedom at all in our choice (free from the laws of physics, and their fundamentally deterministic or random nature).”

You’re missing the other half of “free will”: the “will”. Absolute freedom of choice is simply random choice, which completely fails the “will” requirement.

I like to summarize it thus: our nature defines our choices, but some would also want us to have a choice in our nature. I think you can see that this is irreducibly circular, which means you have to choose one or the other. So the question is simply: what definition explains most of our intuitions while providing a useful viewpoint on choice? Empirical experimental philosophy studies have shown that Compatibilism matches our folk intuitions on responsibility and free choice. So Sam Harris can whine all he wants, but the impliciations of his view on free will is not the one shared by most people.

“All of these factors are out of the robots control, and in any case, will you or another with your reasoning grant that a robot can have free will?”

Yes, a certain class of robots can have free will. Why shouldn’t they? Do you think the brain is some magical organ that can defy the laws of physics such that we couldn’t build a machine to mimic it?

Any system that exhibits the ability for true understanding, whatever that turns out to be, has free will.

I disagree that experimental philosophy has shown that we have compatibilist intuitions. There are xphi studies (and psychological studies – see some of the work by Gazzinga, Vohs, and Schooler) that purport to show that the folk have incompatibilist intuitions. I am also aware of similar compatibilist versions of these studies as well. Moral of the story: it’s NOT clear that the folk have either intuition yet. Though, I should add, I find the incompatibilist studies more convincing at this point.

Re: robots. Why don’t all of them have free will? Toasters, etc.? If robot movements occur via determined processes and our “actions” occur via determined processes, then why not just grant that everything has free will? It sounds absurd to me but I don’t see a relevant difference between “happenings” in the world and actions. Further, should we start blaming these machines for their malfunctions as well?

You ask: Do you think the brain is some magical organ that can defy the laws of physics such that we couldn’t build a machine to mimic it?

My answer: Human beings are agent-causes. We have ‘powers’ that allow us to choose between one course of action or another. The laws and the past dictate what choices are salient but they do not determine how we will choose. I recommend this website to get a better handle on what I mean by powers.

> Moral of the story: it’s NOT clear that the folk have either intuition yet. Though, I should add, I find the incompatibilist studies more convincing at this point.

The last study I saw demonstrated the inconsistencies in the results were attributable to the participants’ lack of understanding of the implications of a position. When presented with scenarios, participants agreed with Compatibilist moral reasoning, but when presented with the bare axioms, agreed with Incompatiblist principles, despite these principles contradicting their moral reasoning. Needless to say, it seems a profound mistake to simply take people’s beliefs at face value when their behaviour clearly contradicts said beliefs.

> Why don’t all of them have free will? Toasters, etc.? If robot movements occur via determined processes and our “actions” occur via determined processes, then why not just grant that everything has free will?

Since some algorithms are sorting algorithms, why not just grant that all algorithms are sorting algorithms?

I hope the mistake in this sort of question is obvious. Sorting is a class of algorithm with a certain property, and as I initially said, a certain class of robotos will also exhibit free will. “Being deterministic” is one property of interest, but it’s not the only property. I don’t see why you think “being deterministic” ought to somehow trump all other properties in defining a “one true” equivalence class.

> Further, should we start blaming these machines for their malfunctions as well?

I don’t see any problem whatsoever for blame being transitive up to the nearest agent with free will. If this happens to be a machine, then sure.

You say “The last study I saw demonstrated the inconsistencies in the results were attributable to the participants’ lack of understanding of the implications of a position. When presented with scenarios, participants agreed with Compatibilist moral reasoning, but when presented with the bare axioms, agreed with Incompatiblist principles, despite these principles contradicting their moral reasoning. Needless to say, it seems a profound mistake to simply take people’s beliefs at face value when their behaviour clearly contradicts said beliefs.”

The last study I saw did not appeal to “bare axioms”. Good xphi would not simply ask and report. See Gunnar Bjornson’s work on this as well as a study by Vohs and Schooler (2008).

You say “Since some algorithms are sorting algorithms, why not just grant that all algorithms are sorting algorithms?

I hope the mistake in this sort of question is obvious. Sorting is a class of algorithm with a certain property, and as I initially said, a certain class of robotos will also exhibit free will. “Being deterministic” is one property of interest, but it’s not the only property. I don’t see why you think “being deterministic” ought to somehow trump all other properties in defining a “one true” equivalence class.”

Because to grant any special status to other properties seems ad-hoc. If determinism is true, then there is no significant difference between a rock falling down a hill because the wind blew it over or you making a decision because of the past coupled with the laws of nature. Why think other properties are morally significant if what is causing that property to manifest is a deterministic process? Some are more complex than others and have a longer chain of events (in a way) but why think that a longer or more complex chain is significant? Thus, given that toasters are mechanistic in the same way (or at least there seems to be no SIGNIFICANT difference) that we are (I don’t believe that we are but I’ll grant it for the sake of argument), then why not blame the toaster for burning your toast?

You say “I don’t see any problem whatsoever for blame being transitive up to the nearest agent with free will. If this happens to be a machine, then sure.”

But that’s just my point, there is NO AGENCY if we do not have free will. I am an agency incompatibilist. In order for their to be agents we must have the capacity to act. But, if determinism then there are not actions, only happenings. Thus, without free will we do not have agency. Without agency you do not get justified blame. For if you have not acted then what are you being blamed for?

“You’re missing the other half of “free will”: the “will”. Absolute freedom of choice is simply random choice, which completely fails the “will” requirement.”

No, I’m not missing the other half. There is no other half. Random choice isn’t any free choice at all either. It is random, which also negates free will (as you say).

“Empirical experimental philosophy studies have shown that Compatibilism matches our folk intuitions on responsibility and free choice. So Sam Harris can whine all he wants, but the impliciations of his view on free will is not the one shared by most people.”

And what implications are those exactly? That Compatibilism matches our folk intuitions is beside the point — that they match only shows why so many people believe they have free will. It does not grant that free will is the case.

“Yes, a certain class of robots can have free will. Why shouldn’t they? Do you think the brain is some magical organ that can defy the laws of physics such that we couldn’t build a machine to mimic it?”

Not at all. I don’t think that any being can have free will (including robots). I agree that robots can have the same faculties that humans have, so I agree that as you said, the brain isn’t some magic organ, and I never suggested it was. I merely pointed out the robot, because most people see just how causally determined (or random in the case of a random number generator in the robots repertoire) a robot’s behavior can be. I mentioned robots, because humans are so much LIKE robots, that if one denies free will in one, they are fairly safe in denying free will in the other (assuming that both the human and robot have the same hierarchical complexity as one another. That was why I mentioned it. Call it some low hanging fruit, and nothing more.

“Any system that exhibits the ability for true understanding, whatever that turns out to be, has free will.”

On the contrary, free will doesn’t exist in any classical sense, unless you redefine it to exist in an entity that has some minimum level of hierarchical pattern recognition complexity, memory, etc., which misses the point. A different term should be used in such a case, one that quantifies a level of hierarchical pattern recognition in the system, complexity of goals, etc. This is one thing that disappoints me most in any free will debates. Its obvious that nobody has free will, so when we want to talk about what we do have, different terms should be used.

“Though, I should add, I find the incompatibilist studies more convincing at this point. ”

This makes more sense to me. If people are defining their terms intuitively and realize what determinism or randomness are, then incompatibilism seems like a more appropriate intuition. People may have an intuition that we have free will, but if given the knowledge of determinism, causality, and randomness, cognitive dissonance is likely to give way to an incompatibilist view of the world.

“My answer: Human beings are agent-causes. We have ‘powers’ that allow us to choose between one course of action or another. The laws and the past dictate what choices are salient but they do not determine how we will choose. I recommend this website to get a better handle on what I mean by powers.”

Although the “choices” we make are determined by our repertoire of decision making criteria and beliefs, all of which are just as causally determined as that of a robot making a “choice”. As long as people know that when they use the word “choice” in this kind of discussion, there is no evidence to suggest that it is any different than a robot executing an algorithm with reference to its memory banks and programming to arrive at some “decision”. It’s decision isn’t caused by magic of any kind, rather it is caused by a chain of reasoning built into its hardware and programming just like the case with human beings’ brains.

> Why think other properties are morally significant if what is causing that property to manifest is a deterministic process?

It’s perfectly coherent to say that any system that can understand the moral implications of a choice, carries moral responsibility for said choice. I think everyone will agree with the position that a person who feels a murder is justified, is responsible for said murder. The fact that they felt perfectly justified in doing so is what makes them responsible, regardless of whether it was predetermined.

It’s clear that we intuitively don’t hold the insane morally responsible, nor do we hold those of sufficiently low intelligence responsible, like babies or those with down syndrome. However, those exhibiting *sufficient understanding* are considered responsible.

If you order people along an axis according to increasing responsibility, you’ll actually find that people become *more* responsible the *more* deterministic they are, ie. babies aren’t responsible, but the more they learn about good choices and thus harden their decision process against impulses and random influences, the *more responsible* we hold them for their actions. The completely insane aren’t responsible at all because they exhibit *only* random influence. So in fact, determinism is intuitively relevant to responsibility, but in exactly the opposite sense that you describe.

> Some are more complex than others and have a longer chain of events (in a way) but why think that a longer or more complex chain is significant?

Because complexity *is* significant, despite being mostly ignored in philosophy. Mere computability is important, but not nearly the only philosophically relevant property of computation (or physics). It’s hard to summarize why concisely, but Scott Aaronson has a good go at it [1] (see Section 4).

For a simple example, consider two Turing tests where a person acts as the computer, but in one test their responses are artificially slowed 10,000 fold. The judge will never identify an entity that takes a year to respond to every question as conscious, even though according to your argument, complexity ought to be irrelevant to such a question. Human time scales *are* relevant to many philosophical questions.

> In order for their to be agents we must have the capacity to act. But, if determinism then there are not actions, only happenings. Thus, without free will we do not have agency. Without agency you do not get justified blame. For if you have not acted then what are you being blamed for?

All you’ve shown is that a particular conception of “action” is inconsistent with determinism, not that *all possible* definitions of “action” are inconsistent with determinism. There’s nothing inherently inconsistent with the idea that some happenings are actions.

As a simple example, suppose free will is a property of an algorithm, like “sorting”. “Actions” are then any output from a free will algorithm, ie. some happenings are actions [2]. Agency follows from entities that produce actions, and responsibility is attributed to the nearest agent. That’s perfectly coherent, and the only question that remains is whether these definitions have more predictive and explanatory power than other definitions. This is the real debate between Compatibilism and Incompatibilism.

Personally, most people clearly hold other people morally responsible for their choices, except in unusual circumstances like described above. In other words, most people consider *people* to have free will, *regardless* of whether people are fundamentally deterministic. This clearly argues for the intuitiveness of Compatibilism.

Lage said: “On the contrary, free will doesn’t exist in any classical sense, unless you redefine it to exist in an entity that has some minimum level of hierarchical pattern recognition complexity, memory, etc., which misses the point. […] This is one thing that disappoints me most in any free will debates. Its obvious that nobody has free will, so when we want to talk about what we do have, different terms should be used.”

I don’t think it misses the point at all. There is debate over the definition of free will just as there is debate over the definition of morality. Years ago, someone asked the question of what it means to make a “free” choice, and everyone since has been scrambling to push their interpretation of “free”. You’re not just going to unilaterally declare that “free” must mean “free of determinism”, and just have people accept your assertion without argument.

Certainly it’s very likely that no one has the freedom from determinism that you want free will to mean, but I have no reason to accept this as the canonical meaning of “free will”, and it certainly doesn’t match how it’s commonly used (or been used in law since the dawn of recorded history — the Code of Hammurabi defined what it meant to be a “free man” and to be responsible for choices). Frankly, if anyone should change their terms given the weight of history and colloquial use of “free will”, it’s the incompatibilists.

“It’s perfectly coherent to say that any system that can understand the moral implications of a choice, carries moral responsibility for said choice. I think everyone will agree with the position that a person who feels a murder is justified, is responsible for said murder. The fact that they felt perfectly justified in doing so is what makes them responsible, regardless of whether it was predetermined.”

This depends on what you mean by “moral responsibility”. Yes, technically the person was involved in the causal chain of events and is therefore causally responsible, but if they’re nothing more than a product of their genes and environment (both internal chemical environment & external indoctrinating environment if you want to look at different levels of environmental constraints), then they couldn’t have chosen any differently. This is why Sam Harris’ viewpoints are important, because they illustrate the importance of negating retribution and revenge on a guilty criminal. This doesn’t mean that we don’t lock up dangerous criminals, but it means that rather than looking at a person as if they could have chosen differently, and have that false view contribute to our motivation for their punishment, we treat them neutrally in that sense as an innocent product of their genes and environment — trying to find ways to best correct them, knowing what the real causes of their behavior was and addressing them as best we can. How a person feels is a product of their genetically mediated hardware and their environment, and so feelings don’t exempt anyone from the causal chain of the genetic and environmental constraints that mediated their behavior, and thus are irrelevant.

“It’s clear that we intuitively don’t hold the insane morally responsible, nor do we hold those of sufficiently low intelligence responsible, like babies or those with down syndrome. However, those exhibiting *sufficient understanding* are considered responsible.”

Yes, we tend to give those that are missing “normal” faculties a free pass in the sense that we don’t bestow punishment on them to act as a deterrent for future criminal behavior, because we felt that they acted out of ignorance anyway. However, even any “normal” or “healthy” individual still has a similar ignorance (or faultlessness), in the sense that their views and motivations for their behavior are controlled by genes and environment that are out of their control. We can’t control what genes we are bestowed from conception, nor can we opt out of where we are raised as a child. Once that personality/behavioral foundation is set, life is but a cascade of one event intimately tied to the one before it and after it. We build upon that base over the years of our lives, and sometimes we may change the way we behave as we gain more information. But that is still a result of the new information being inserted into our previous hardware and repertoire. If you ask anyone, if you could go back in time, would you change any of your behavior? Many would say yes, because knowledge of the future allows them to see what actions would have produced better consequences, based on that hindsight 20/20. However, if you were to reverse time and replay the scene, would different choices really result? Only if randomness came into play, which still gives nobody any more freedom than determinism did. If there is no randomness, I would expect the person to weigh the pros and cons as they did before and come to the SAME decision as before. We can’t simply change our opinion to what bestows the best consequences on the fly, when we don’t know what many of those consequences are, and when many of our opinions and behaviors are emotionally driven, where even rational critical thought often are omitted from any consideration of the person’s behavior (i.e. “it was an impulsive moment of testosterone, or anger, or sadness, etc.). Even when we don’t have much emotion flavoring our decisions or actions much if at all, we still are using the decision-making algorithm based on a lifetime of accrued genetic and environmental development, all of which we are unable to guide, and only able to use the past remembered experiences and our current algorithm as the decision making criteria. So when it gets down to it, the free will debate hinges on the idea of “being able to behave differently (less randomness) if given the exact same initial conditions”, which is patently false based on the laws of physics we’ve learned thus far. Yes, we can make decisions using more complicated algorithms than a person of less intelligence or another species with less faculties. So in that sense, we should be able to make more informed decisions with better knowledge of the consequences of those actions, but simply because the decision making algorithm may be more complex, doesn’t grant that “decision maker” from it being an algorithm that they are executing like a computer.

“Personally, most people clearly hold other people morally responsible for their choices, except in unusual circumstances like described above. In other words, most people consider *people* to have free will, *regardless* of whether people are fundamentally deterministic. This clearly argues for the intuitiveness of Compatibilism.”

It doesn’t argue for the intuitiveness of Compatibilism. Most people believe in free will, because it doesn’t feel that anything or anyone else is controlling us like a puppet. We are denied access to the unconscious mind, and we are denied significant experience of the mechanistic physical interactions at the molecular level that lead up to macroscopic behavior. We are aware of it now based on scientific discovery, so for those that are scientifically informed, it just makes a belief in free will delusional. However, as Sam Harris has pointed out, even the illusion of free will (nicely illustrated by Wagner’s Theory of Apparent Mental Causation I think), seems to be an illusion itself. We don’t feel like we author the thoughts that pop into our stream of consciousness, as they appear to pop into our head ex nihilo. Since we don’t see a source, we assume it’s us, but that’s because it is the simplest explanation and thus the most intuitive. However a brief analysis of introspection makes it obvious that our causa sui authorship is only an assumption, it isn’t demonstrated that we can control which thoughts enter our consciousness and which do not.

“I don’t think it misses the point at all. There is debate over the definition of free will just as there is debate over the definition of morality. Years ago, someone asked the question of what it means to make a “free” choice, and everyone since has been scrambling to push their interpretation of “free”. You’re not just going to unilaterally declare that “free” must mean “free of determinism”, and just have people accept your assertion without argument.”

Yes, there is debate over the definition, which is fine. People have to agree on terminology to get anywhere, period. So I grant that. However, once again, it seems that the crux of the issue regarding free will is “whether or not we could have chosen to behave differently given the same initial conditions”. That seems like a fairly common description of the free will problem, and the question people are trying to answer. If that is the case, then my interpretation of free is indeed “free of determinism” (and keep in mind that any randomness is irrelevant to a free will as well).

“Certainly it’s very likely that no one has the freedom from determinism that you want free will to mean, but I have no reason to accept this as the canonical meaning of “free will”, and it certainly doesn’t match how it’s commonly used (or been used in law since the dawn of recorded history — the Code of Hammurabi defined what it meant to be a “free man” and to be responsible for choices). Frankly, if anyone should change their terms given the weight of history and colloquial use of “free will”, it’s the incompatibilists.”

I disagree, but how the term changes isn’t what is most important anyway. It is that people realize that given the same initial conditions, we have no control over changing the outcome. If I choose to do X and could rewind the clock, my “choice” is already chosen based on the causal chain that preceded it. There is no sense in the claim that “he could have chosen to do Y, so….”. That’s what mainly matters in this debate (in my opinion), and people can change definitions of terms all they want but it doesn’t change the existence of a causal chain of events that can’t be changed (less randomness) without violating physical laws. This realization is important so that we don’t have retribution against those that behave in ways that we abhor, but rather should find out how we can modify the causal factors that led to the behavior in the first place (gene therapy, mental health counseling and therapy, etc.). This will likely improve the mentality of a victim that no longer needs to “take it personally” or see an offender as someone who could have chosen differently but different (because they are “evil”, etc.). We are all products of our genes and environment, so let’s address problems at those sources, our genes and environment. We need to improve society by continuing to use technology to better inform our “decisions” and to put causal driving forces into play that steer our behavior into productive directions. We already do this with schooling and parenting, trying to teach our children how to behave and live productively, but we need to amp that up. We need to also realize that we aren’t blank slates that can be conditioned to behave in any way imaginable (whilst maintaining mental and physical well being). We need to work with our biology (gene constraints) and through genetic engineering, we may find ourselves able to “program”/design our moral instincts genetically to work better with societal goals and synchronize our cultural and genetic evolution. It’s only getting better, but the more we learn about human biology, the more we realize that we aren’t the sources of our behaviors. Let’s drop the denial of this fact and start working with it, not against it.

You say: “All of these factors are out of the robots control, and in any case, will you or another with your reasoning grant that a robot can have free will?”

My answer: No. Robots are not agent-causes in the way that humans are. They do not have the same causal powers that humans have. These powers are what makes us agents and robots mere causally determined artifacts (non-agents) of agents.

You say: “The bottom line is, we don’t have free will because the laws of physics govern everything (deterministically or randomly) that occurs in the brain or anywhere else in the universe. To think otherwise is to negate naturalism and replace it with supernaturalism which has no scientific support or basis.”

Answer: there are *at least* two plausable interpretations of the “laws of physics (or nature” 1) the Humean model, and 2) the necessetarian model. If I were to adopt 1) I would not have to negate naturalism. I can give a naturalistic story of how the laws work (the Humean model is naturalistic) and this model also leaves it open to how I will make a choice in the future (Will I do A or B? This question is OPEN under a Humean conception of the laws of nature). While I agree that “randomness” does not give us free will, I disagree that a random universe cannot have have agents that can “settle” matters. And one would NOT need to give up a naturalistic world view in order to account for this sort of settling. Agents “settle” on doing A or B in a way that is not determined by the laws of nature. For a nice theory on how this works (a naturalistic model) I suggest reading Helen Steward’s excellent book titled the “Metaphysics of Freedom”. See here— http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2012/07/15/helen-steward-a-metaphysics-of-freedom-oxford-up-2012/

“You say: “All of these factors are out of the robots control, and in any case, will you or another with your reasoning grant that a robot can have free will?”
My answer: No. Robots are not agent-causes in the way that humans are. They do not have the same causal powers that humans have. These powers are what makes us agents and robots mere causally determined artifacts (non-agents) of agents.”

Which was why I left that low hanging fruit there. Robots can be designed with the same cognitive level as human beings as long there are an appropriate number of pattern recognition modules, memory banks, and a coinciding comparable hierarchical structure with regard to cognition and decision making based on that pattern recognition and memory. To say otherwise, is simply an argument from incredulity, based on the fact that we haven’t YET made a robot that has convinced us of possessing a human level of cognitive complexity. Once we do, which AI is making incredible advances in accomplishing, what argument is left that robots (no matter what substrate is used, even biological) can never have the same faculties and abilities as human beings? None that I can see.

“Answer: there are *at least* two plausable interpretations of the “laws of physics (or nature” 1) the Humean model, and 2) the necessetarian model. If I were to adopt 1) I would not have to negate naturalism. I can give a naturalistic story of how the laws work (the Humean model is naturalistic) and this model also leaves it open to how I will make a choice in the future (Will I do A or B? This question is OPEN under a Humean conception of the laws of nature).”

It doesn’t matter which metaphysical interpretation you choose to employ, because the scientific evidence is what should be guiding us to the most plausible conclusion, which relies in physics, not in metaphysics. All scientific evidence points to “adequate determinism” (the patterns and laws of physics that we observe) with fundamental randomness (quantum indeterminacy, no local hidden variables, etc.). Thus, all the evidence points to determinism and/or randomness, and in either case, free will can’t exist (unless we redefine it to do so, which then it should just be called something else like “decision making algorithm complexity”).

“While I agree that “randomness” does not give us free will, I disagree that a random universe cannot have have agents that can “settle” matters.”

Whether or not an agent (an entity executing a decision making algorithm, perhaps of some minimum level of complexity) can “settle” matters is beside the point. It has never been argued that agents can’t settle matters in the sense of executing a decision making algorithm to completion.

“Agents “settle” on doing A or B in a way that is not determined by the laws of nature.”

There is no evidence to support this claim. There is no evidence that shows that how decisions are made aren’t entirely constrained by the laws of physics. One can argue for a metaphysical theory that tries to make this true, but it is ad hoc and not supported by any empirical data. All brain chemistry is governed by the same laws of physics that govern any other chemical reaction. The burden of proof is on anyone that says the former to show an example of some chemical reaction that circumvents the laws of physics, and violates them somehow. To date, this hasn’t been done.

“For a nice theory on how this works (a naturalistic model) I suggest reading Helen Steward’s excellent book titled the “Metaphysics of Freedom”. See here”

I took a look at the link and I see: “On Steward’s view, the concept of agency is very close to that of animacy, and includes the concept of being able to settle what happens, when and how with one’s body. Since settling matters implies that they are not determined, agency is incompatible with determinism, and since there are agents, determinism must be false. That is, it is not up to physics to tell us whether determinism is true. Moreover, she denies that the causal efficacy nature of agency should be explicated in terms of events going on inside agents. With this subtly argued book, Steward assumes a leading role in a new non-mechanistic movement in the metaphysics of mind and mental causation.”

Simply by positing agency, and ascribing it’s incompatibility with determinism doesn’t negate determinism. It could just as easily be the case, that agency is false. More importantly, what does Steward offer to counter the argument that any brain states leading to a “decision” are caused by chemistry in the brain, operating on laws that have not known to be violated? I have not read her book, but have you? If so, what is the basic outline of her argument and what empirical data does she have to support it? If it is entirely a metaphysical argument, outside the realm of verification, then it is unfalsifiable and it is also ad hoc to propose anything not suggested or corroborated by empirical evidence.

I just have to comment on your one sentence in your response in 3a. “Until we can come up with some reasonable option for that we must assume there is nothing.” That’s not how it works. You just commited the appeal to ignorance fallacy. I never understood why people don’t understand that not everything is black and white. Just because we don’t have evidence for something doesn’t mean that everyone must conclude that there must be nothing. “We must assume”. Why? Why can the answer never be just “we don’t know, but for my argument i’ll claim it doesn’t exist, and in that reality i believe my argument holds water.”

Traditionally, strictly speaking, philosophy was science. Philosophers theorized about what the world was like and always used empirical evidence to support their theories, their instruments were far less sophisticated but they were engaged in science nonetheless. This goes as far back as we can track. Aristotle, etc. So, it WAS science.

Umm… no it wasn’t, at least in the sense we use the term today to describe a method of inquiry that allows reality to arbitrate claims made about it. Traditionally, reality played second fiddle to metaphysical philosophy of the way the world must be based on certain – and quite wrong – philosophical assumptions. So, although certain philosophers and philosophies may pay lip service to certain scientific claims, they utterly fail to maintain the rigor of the scientific method to allow reality its proper role to arbitrate philosophical claims made about it.

In addition, I think you make an oft-repeated error by comprehending the term ‘will’ to be synonymous with ‘choice’. We can have all the choices in the world and still (predictably) make the same one over and over and over again. If this is will, it’s not free; if this is what you call free, then it’s not will. There remains a fundamental and fatal flaw in the cohesion of the concept we call free will. Reading more philosophy is hardly a remedy.

I think this typical mistake of assuming synonyms rather than dealing with the terms presented has the effect of misleading you in your line of reasoning to suggest Harris should read more philosophy. Perhaps you should better understand his argument first without cluttering up the operating room of your dissection with your own basic misunderstandings. In addition, perhaps you should become better acquainted with the method of good science that produces knowledge that – unlike philosophy – works for everyone everywhere all the time. In this methodological achievement by science, there is something very worthwhile to emulate (and not found in the misleading metaphysics of an Aristotle or an Aquinas), yet a method that philosophers wish to maternally claim for their own in name but not practice by deed.

@tildeb: Nicely put. That will/choice thing is so hard for so many to get past (especially, I suspect, when they don’t wish to). Not that they can help it, of course.
DNA and environment: they determine what we are at any given moment of our lives, and what we are determines all our “choices”, including our “reflections”. DNA and environment: we do not control them, and we know of no other factor that could interfere and make the human mind to any degree immune from the deterministic processes that govern the universe. Quantum-level randomness is sometimes offered as a counterargument to determinism, but randomness is a poor basis for meaningful free will.
That’s all there is to it, despite all attempts to muddy the waters. No book required.

“Free will” is a concept some religious leaders invented to legitimize their judging of people for punishment or reward. It’s the lack of knowledge that gave rise to this current of thought. What if a killer is destined to commit murder because of the genetic code he inherited and the circumstances that lead him in that situation, none of which he could have controlled ULTIMATELY (Galen Strawson)? Should we execute him, give him a life in prison or try rehabilitation? Well, if all it takes is “a change of one bit in his DNA programming” the subject would be closed… too bad we’re still not there yet.

I couldn’t disagree more! It’s the knowledge of our every day experiences that gave rise to the concept, not a lack of knowledge.

Your manipulation style example and it’s connection to punishment is a good question but I don’t have time at the moment to give you the detailed response I would like. With that said, I do think it’s fair to say that those arguments are far from conclusive on the side of the incompatibilist. There was a recent workshop in Hungary on the manipulation argument, you should check out the papers if you’re interested. I have a link, feel ‘FREE’ to email me🙂

I must clarify that I’m no philosopher by profession, so I’m not versed in all sorts of arguments. I wasn’t aware that I was pulling a manipulation argument (?). I’ll check that page (humanproject.ceu.hu ?) to see if there’s something worth while there.
For me “free will” is a *thing* attributed by some people to agents in situations where they truly deserve blame or praise for their actions. But for me these situations aren’t possible because they imply ultimate responsibility (Galen Strawson) which in turn requires an unintelligible and impossible causa sui.
I know compatibilits don’t agree with this definition but I’m yet to be convinced otherwise.
Can you explain what exactly do you mean by “knowledge of our every day experiences” ? What sort of knowledge would that be? because I was thinking about knowledge of the true causes of our behavior… if there are any, I’m not excluding the possiblity of an ontologically indeterministic universe.

Roman – my apologies for assuming your awareness of the manipulation argument, and yes, that’s the page – interesting arguments! Also, it’s not a bad thing that you were appealing to the manipulation argument it’s a very good argument. The only reason I mentioned it was because there are live answers that the compatibilist has within that debate, so, an appeal to a variety of that argument as being conclusive that the compatibilist is wrong is not as fruitful as you may have first thought.

With regards to Galen Strawson’s “Ultimate Responsibility” argument, I guess we’ll have to notice that we’re at an impasse. You (and Galen) are not buying any of the compatibilist definitions of free will, and I (and compatabilists more generally) aren’t buying the incompatibilist definition. Again, I’d like to point to the interesting study that suggests the compatibilist notion of free will is the notion that many feel is enough to ground ascriptions of moral responsibility and blame/praise (see Nahmias, Nadelhoffer, Turner. et.al 2005).

By “knowledge of every day experiences” I’m referring to the knowledge I have of what it is for me to have the phenomenological expereince of making a decision between on the one hand writing this response and, on the other, cleaning and organizing my office.

Now, you ask what type of knowledge that would be. Well, I see this as a case of knowledge by testimony. This is a legitimate way of acquiring “knowledge” in nearly all epistemic systems. I consider myself to be a reliable source with regards to my ability to discuss what it’s like to be me.

You said that you’re thinking about knowledge of the “true causes of our behavior”… “if there are any”. And, you leave open the possibility of an ontologically indeterministic universe. All I’m saying is that I have some evidence that suggests to me that at least SOME of my choices are free. This evidence is derived from my experiences in the world. This evidence is at least AS GOOD as the SUGGESTION that neuroscience and Sam Harris has given us, which is to say that free will is an illusion.

If you follow and agree that the experiments of Libet and others and what is real, then your hard pressed to prove free will. If my choice happens subconsciously like so many other functions like controlling my heart, digestion, etc.. etc.., then how can it be that ai can say I, the person experiencing the specious present, which I believe is just like sections of film, in which I have no control but only watch what has occurred including choices made. I there 500ms ahead do I have access to all the memories I here have, can I foresee the future as I hear can? I hear have no effect on the past nor can I have any effect on some future happening, ie. just ahead occurring not some tomorrow or next week. That is where free will exists not here now, what is the capacity of my mind and brain in that portion just millisecond ahead, finding this out is where we can find the answer to whether I have indeed free will.

Making a choice is having access to knowledge, knowledge of past and future probables, we know we experience these in the specious present, but is that occurring in the subconscious 500ms ahead? If the answer is yes then it would appear that we have free will but if the answer is no then I don’t see how there can be any free will. I know I don’t have access to the inner working of my brain, only what surfaces as being present. I don’t intermingle my dream states with my day to day life nor to a great extent all of my past except in fleeting thoughts, and I can distinguish between the two, does my subconscious have that same capacity but somehow in reverse? If the answer is no then it would appear that it acts blindly then the answer would seem to be no.

Now since we know that we evolve and memories become a part of who we are, then rolling back time and being placed in an identical situation, there would be the problem of being in that position with knowledge of what occurred, would the subconscious hold that information and if so it will have access to future knowledge and be capable of making a different choice, this knowledge would seem to guide a different decision and now is the choice free or forced because of this knowledge.
We also know that we can sit and ponder a trip or some event that will take place say a month away, that like the actual past becomes knowledge in the brain, and it must be used in this short 500ms time span in order to make a decision just as any knowledge of the past, one can’t make a decision without some sort of knowledge.

So even though it is really me and my brain that is making the decision subconsciously 500ms out, it is limited by information past and future, and uses this information to make a choice, the more knowledge the more restricted and being restricted is not free.

I think what I am trying to say is that is my subconscious is totally different than me and acts just on impulses from the brain and makes choices blindly, then no there is no free will, but if my subconscious is in every way capable of accessing memories and contemplating future probabilities and has all this knowledge intact and uses this knowledge to make choices then there is free will, but this seems at right angles to how free will is defined, i.e. the more knowledge the more restrictive and being restricted precludes free will, as opposed to not being restricted and being free. Does this somehow explain my thought process and head you in the direction of where I am coming from?

Thanks. I’ll be posting a Free Will 101 post very soon for those who are interested but might be turned off by some of the terminiligy. With that said there are a few books I’d recommend.
‘Free Will’ by Joseph Keim Campbell (Polity Press). ‘A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will’ by Robert Kane (Oxford University Press)
‘Four Views on Free Will by Fischer, Kane, Vargas, Pereboom (Blackwell Publishing)

” a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure.”

So given this definition of freewill (which is either a determinisitc or indeterministic process) why does it make any sense that to claim that someone “derserves” to be punished harshly for perpetrating an anti-social act such as robbing a bank?

I understand you may have moved on to other subjects, but I really wonder why the free will question even continues to exist.

I believe you moderate before posting so feel free not to post this comment. I copy/pasted an article I wrote almost a year ago on the subject. I was going to comment further but realized it would be quite lengthy.

The question is surely alive and well with books being produced year in and year out with fresh takes on the issue. It persists and will persist as long as we continue to hold people accountable for things. Recently, the older arguments are now being reintroduced as to see how they can speak to some of the neuroscience that has been used to claim free will doesn’t exist.

If they couldn’t have done other than what they did then what gives us any justification in blaming them?

I don’t get to my older post comments as much as I should but as I am now accruing a bunch of posts it isn’t as feasible. With that said, I’m sure I’ll be posting on free will soon since my PhD dissertation is on the topic.

Thanks for your reply. Actually I also dealt with that very question in the previously referenced article.

No offense to you, and I assume none taken, but as far as i am concerned the issue as to whether free will exists has been resolved without any question as to the result.

What I find even more interesting is how well your comment exemplifies my point as to why so many people continue to argue over the existence of free will not based on the logical arguments against it, but rather because their world view insists upon it.

“It persists and will persist as long as we continue to hold people accountable for things.”

You see, right there, we are not being scientific. One cannot simply conjure free will out of thin air simply because it fits better into one’s world view.

Having said that the larger point is that it is a misconception that the lack of free will argues against holding people accountable, when rather it insists upon it. Although i devote a substantial portion of my article the very issues and questions you raise the fundamental problem is clearly seen in the following comment:

“If they couldn’t have done other than what they did then what gives us any justification in blaming them?”

What happened here is that you moved from a discussion on free will to a discussion on volition while assuming they are the same thing. To make things a bit clearer, you move from the concept of free will to suggesting that “they couldn’t have done other than what they did” and thus there is no justification in blaming them. This misconception, in my opinion, is the basis on which all arguments are made attempting to prove the existence of free will. This is because it completely ignores the affect of the environment. Sure, in the absence of any restrictions my nature might influence me to make the choice to reach over the counter and slap the cashier who continues to ignore me, but the fact that there are likely to be negative consequences should I take that action also prevents me from doing so. Point being, if I am NOT held accountable based on the fact I have volition but not free will the opposite effect to the one you suggest is what occurs.

I hope this provided at least a brief synopsis of my position. Having read your several articles, I have again become motivated to write one more attempting to conclusively prove to those who still disagree that free will does not exist. Period. It cannot anymore than one plus one can equal anything other than two.

I must admit, I don’t see myself as “conjuring free will out of thin air”. I see myself trying to account for the practices of holding one another morally responsible by grounding these practices in a scientifically informed understanding of how human behavior works. The notion of free will I am working with is not some mystical force, and it need not be. Most philosophers who advocate for some sort of free will are doing so while engaging with the science. Given what we know about science and what we think about human behavior is there a way to understand the concept of free will? I think the answer is yes, you seem to think no. However, we should be clear on what we mean by free will.

I suggest you read this (cut and paste it in your browser) http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/mrvargas/Papers/NoFWNoWater.pdf forthcoming piece by Manual Vargas. It’s excellent he addresses the sort of points you are making. It’s titled “If Free Will Doesn’t Exist Then Neither Does Water”. He also has a book coming out with OUP which I would recommend as well. He sees the debate much like you, as a consequentialist. We ought to continue engaging in our practices of holding one another morally responsible for reasons you have eluded to. I think such reasons for holding one responsible (in most cases) must be grounded in something more than consequentialist reasons. However, I think the above piece will be quite illuminating for you.

One more note:I’m unsure to what your expertise is and in what field, however, your aim “to write one more (post) attempting to conclusively prove to those who still disagree that free will does not exist” might be a bit misguided or impossible. Many very very intelligent people have tried just this only to fall short. I suggest reading the flickers of freedom blog where the world’s most widely read and educated experts are hashing out problems related to free will. If you think you can knock down all of their arguments (those in disagreement with you) then you will have your fix there. There are lots of arguments for the existence of certain conceptions of free will and to think that one argument can shoot them all down is a bit naive. Don’t assume that people who claim we have free will are being mystical. Read the references to my post “The Free Will Problem”. Al Mele is a worthwhile pick-up as is any compatibilist understanding of free will where they claim free will is compatible with determinism.

I am afraid you are missing my point, but in any event let me post a quote from the Vargas article:

“The version of free will at stake in the present essay is this: free will is the power or capacity characteristic of agents, in virtue of which they become appropriate targets for moralized praise and blame.”

No, that is volition and this is not a simply matter of arguing over pronouncing tomato vs tomaaato. Even in the body of his article one can see that his way of dealing with the debate is to attempt to suggest that there are widely different ways of defining free will. This is simply not the case. Throughout the article he confuses volition with free will constantly using the characteristics of the one to “prove” the existence of the other in the same way you did in your previous comment. The hang up is in the inability to break out of the paradigm which rests on the sole premise that the existence of free will is a condition which must be exist prior to holding an individual responsible for his or her actions.

“This is a “responsibility-centric” notion of free will. On this way of putting things, the stakes are whether we have the power required to license moralized praise and blame. ”

Well, no, which is why it is impossible for him to get out of the philosophical trap of his own making. He has a premise which he wishes to prove, possibly a career to protect, and thus anything else he suggests becomes immaterial.

“The free will nihilist holds that we lack the sort of power necessary for moral responsibility,so that our inferences about responsibility are mostly
false, our responsibility practices (including praising, blaming, and punishing) are unjustified, and our attitudes are unwarranted, even if inevitable.”

I won’t speak to what the “free will nihilist” holds, but his attempt to equate opinions such as mine with what he suggests are nothing but the building of a strawman.

Here’s the point, and than I will leave you…..for a while….:) After all, there is no point in going around in circles. Throw away your preconceived notions, begin from the beginning. Forget your concerns about the implications and simply look at the issue. Define free will without the baggage you bring to it. The working title of my article is: “Does a seed have free will?” Think about it, and thank you, once again, for your time and suggestions. I hope I have not been too much of a bother…..

If Mr. Vargas, and others like him, were to actually and consistently use the definition which I quoted up above I could simply change my definition to agree with his and agree with his conclusions as well. The problem is that he does not stick to that definition as he attempts to suggest that by agreeing to the definition he provides one also must agree that it applies to my definition of free will as well.

I’m not seeing why Vargas, or anyone else, is not allowed to define free will in the way he does. Why is your conception of free will the “right” one? It seems that you’re also doing what you claim Vargas and I are doing and building a strawman.

You’re taking an impossible notion of free will and saying that it can’t exist. Isn’t that a strawman? Hundreds of years ago free will might have meant what you claim (just like water meant something different back then as well – Vargas’ point). But as we come to understand human behavior and the elements that make up our decisions our conception of free will comes into better focus. I’m bringing in no more baggage into the discussion as you are. You’re bringing in your preconceived notions of what free will means to you as is everyone else in the debate does.

You said that Vargas is “attempt(ing) to suggest that there are widely different ways of defining free will. This is simply not the case.”

Why? Please enlighten all of us as to the only way that he (and I) are allowed to talk about free will? This rings of dogmatism. You understood free will to be one thing and anyone who says otherwise is false, without argument. That won’t fly.

With that said, you haven’t been a bother at all. I enjoy discussing this topic. Your view is similar to lots in the field (Galen Strawson, Sam Harris, and others) and I don’t think it’s crazy. However, I also don’t think it’s crazy to understand free will the way that I do. I endorse the agnostic autonomism that has been put forth by Al Mele.

Agnostic Autonomism (AA): the conjunction of the agnosticism related to the compatibility of free will and determinism with the claim that there are free and morally responsible human beings.

Mele argues (and I agree) that AA is more credible than the view that there are no free or morally responsible agents.

“I can now state the substantive proposal baldly: free will should be understood as the capacity to recognize and suitably respond to moral considerations. The account is revisionist, but it is not unprincipled. The capacity to recognize and suitably respond to moral considerations matters in part because it is valuable to us to be those kinds of agents who are good at such things.”
I waded through the Vargas piece just to get to that. Yes, it is a revisionist definition of free will: in other words, it is not free will he turns out to be arguing for, but rather a practical approach to the assessment of and response to different kinds of social behavior.
His curious notion that “skepticism about free will has to be earned” is a baseless assertion that has nothing to do with conclusions based on reason and evidence.
The whole essay is a rather long-winded attempt to fudge the issue by insisting that skeptics must take account of a “concept of free will” that is “more resilient and flexible than most free will skeptics tend to acknowledge”. It’s just the usual attempt to find wiggle room where there is none.

As a side note, unless you already have commenting privileges it seems my first comment was rejected as I coincidentally made a comment to the same article you did on Flickers of Freedom. I will admit it was extremely short and perhaps needed clarification. On the other hand, convincing a group whose entire lives and careers seem to revolve around the debate of whether free will exists that the might be a bit more difficult for reasons that are somewhat obvious. No offense intended as they could be addressing the next question which is the moral ramifications of who decides on the parameters of the system to which people are molded.

Now, in answer to your question and accompanying comment:

“I’m not seeing why Vargas, or anyone else, is not allowed to define free will in the way he does. Why is your conception of free will the “right” one? It seems that you’re also doing what you claim Vargas and I are doing and building a strawman.”

Because a dog is a dog, whether or not you define a dog as a cat because the airlines allow a cat to be brought on board, but not a dog. That being said, as previously stated, i could even accept a discussion based on the dog being defined as being a cat if the discussion consistently adhered to that definition, but not when by accepting the new definition the discussion partner proceeds to use bounce back and forth between the two definitions.

See landbeyond’s comment who sums things up rather well.

“Why? Please enlighten all of us as to the only way that he (and I) are allowed to talk about free will? This rings of dogmatism. You understood free will to be one thing and anyone who says otherwise is false, without argument. That won’t fly.”

I actually find the opposite to be true. Any discussion requires an agreement on the terms being used in that discussion. To change definitions on a whim thus implying that an argument has merit under the old definition while using the new definition to prove it is disingenuous at best. I have already clearly stated that i am perfectly willing to use the term cat in place of a dog, but we cannot than continue to use the term cat to describe a cat as well. Pick your definition, and stick with it. If you wish to use the Vargas’ definition which I quoted above, it must be done with the full understanding that it is a “revisionist” definition. What this suggests is that Vargas has already conceded that free will, per the commonly understood definition, does not exist….but does exist if we simply change the definition to one that does.

Once again, I have no problem in addressing the far more important issue of what to do about it, which is actually what everyone seems to discuss in every article written. In fact, it is what he clearly states is his intent and the reason he finds the debate over the existence of free will so important. He is simply mixing two different topics and basing his assertion that free will exists on his need for it to be so. The point I made even before I read his article.

“You’re taking an impossible notion of free will and saying that it can’t exist.”

No, interestingly what you are really saying here is that if one uses the actual definition of free will you agree that it doesn’t exist. That definition being that people have the innate ability to choose how to think and feel without any input from external sources. A quick example:

Your young daughter runs out into the street and you run out to bring her back into the yard. Without understanding the significance, should she be punished? Your response should depend on whether you forbid her to do so previously, and how many times you did so. Even if you had failed to warn her prior to her behavior it would still be a reasonable assumption that you would make some kind of effort to ensure that she changed her behavior in the future even if that “punishment”. simply consisted of sitting her down and explaining what the possible consequences of similar behavior in the future would be. In other words, there would be consequences to her actions even in the absence of her having a value system forbidding her from running into the street.

“Isn’t that a strawman? ”

Not at all, simply your attempt to equate the one with the other. Something of a strawman in and of itself.

“Hundreds of years ago free will might have meant what you claim (just like water meant something different back then as well – Vargas’ point).”

I disagree with his/your analysis…his initially, yours in taking it even further. Assuming that the word water was in use “back then” I would suggest that the term would mean the very same thing. Whether or not they understood what water was made of does not change the fact that if a glass was set before the two of us we could agree on what it was.

I’m afraid that’s as much time as I have at the moment, but will return later to address the rest of your comment.

Again, nothing personal. I assume you are familiar with Myer/Briggs and without making excuses, or a least admitting to doing so, intj’s have a habit of coming across as a bit more aggressive then it often the intent. I keep making this point because I don’t wish for you to misunderstand my position or my tone as I present it in black and white.

I think it’s telling that you “waded through the piece just to get to that” with ‘that’ being Vargas’ revisionist account of what free will is. If you weren’t just trying to get to something to argue against and tried to understand the point of his project you may have been able to get a bit more… maybe. Maybe not.

It seems that you have one account of what free will is and THAT is the right account. Unfortunately, you must give an argument regarding what that account is and why that is the only way to understand free will. I haven’t yet been convinced (neither have many people that work on this stuff) that there is ONLY one way to understand free will.

Free will has always been connected to action and, religious folks aside, most people care about free will because it has always been thought to be a condition for one to be morally responsible. That said, I’m not sure why an account of what free will is(free will understood as some kind of control or power to choose) that does not align with your preconception is necessarily wrong. You have to argue for why your preconception of what free will is is the only conception worth discussing.

It’s like someone 500 years ago looking at water and saying, “hey, you see that over there that is made up of only one substance” and a few hundred years later when it turns out that their thinking about that water was wrong that suddenly water stopped existing. The ancients got it wrong. The mystical free will they spoke of does not seem to exist, but, they were looking at human decisions and choices, much like the example with water, they were just describing how they unfold wrongly. Just because they described what it was to have a free choice wrongly back then doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about free choice differently today. You seem to be suggesting a definition of free will that is untenable. Obviously you’ll be right. However, what’s not obvious is that your understanding of what free will entails is the only way to think about it.

Throughout these discussions I always ask myself “Why the insistence on THAT definition”? The only answer I can come up with is that people just want to be right. And to say that a certain conception of free will is wrong makes them right. I don’t care much about being right. I care more about understanding how decisions come to be and what types of choices we have. Admitting that the environment and the past play a role in our behavior does not mean that only one behavior must be necessitated. I’m beginning to ramble but I think you get the drift.

Hi Justin,
No, I “waded through the piece” in the faint hope that Vargas might have something new to offer on the topic, just as I sometimes listen to what religious believers have to say about the basis for their faith, always being similarly disappointed.
I have a feeling that in the same way many apparently intelligent people can’t (or won’t) “get” the implications of peak oil, others have a hard time “getting” what free will would be if it could be a valid concept.
“Why the insistence on THAT definition?”
If you accept the definition of a dog as being a cat, it isn’t difficult to prove that a dog is a cat (and not a dog).
“Admitting that the environment and the past play a role in our behavior…”
If by “the past” you mean DNA, then I submit that rather than playing “a role” they are the only actors on the stage. I have yet to see any other cast members. What, apart from DNA and the environment from the moment of conception up until any given instance of behavior can have any effect on that behavior. What else can “get in”?
“free will understood as some kind of control or power to choose”
There you have it. Our lives can be viewed as one long succession of choices. Free will would mean that those choices are somehow, independently of the rest of the universe, not determined by physics and preceding events. Non-coerced choice is not synonymous with free will as a meaningful philosophical concept. It is just what it says – choice: it does not address why one choice is made rather than another.
“people care about free will because it has always been thought to be a condition for one to be morally responsible”
True, but irrelevant to what is actually the case.
“people just want to be right”
Ain’t that the truth? ;o)

Control is a topic of much discussion in the literature on autonomy. Sometimes it is claimed that agents have no control at all if determinism is true. That claim is false. When I drive my car (under normal conditions), I am in control of the turns it makes, even if our world happens to be deterministic. I certainly am in control of my car’s movements in a way in which my passengers and others are not. A distinction can be drawn between compatibilist or “nonultimate” control and a species of control that might be available to agents in some indeterministic worlds – “ultimate” control. I have the former kind of control over my car, and I might have the latter kind as well. Ultimate control might turn out to be remarkably similar to the control that many compatibilists have in mind; the key to its being ultimate control might be its indeterministic setting (Mele 1995, p. 213).

The issue:

The choices he makes when driving….do you consider them to be examples of free will or volition?

If you believe that he is making decisions while driving “of his own free will”, on what basis is he making those decisions? What is the process and in what way do his decisions support a claim that he is a causual ? agent? Assuming that he could have turned left when he turned right, why didn’t he?

I considered an article, but we started the conversation here so why not continue?

My real preference is for you to prove the existence of free will as it seems to me that is the more normal way of addressing a subject of inquiry.

Your preference is similar to my preference. You would like me to prove free will and I would like you to prove it doesn’t exist. Notice the initial post. I claimed that Harris has not proved that free will is an illusion. I never claimed that we have free will. I BELIEVE that we do and my phenomenological experience suggests that I have free will as well.

There are multiple interpretations of what the laws of nature (Hume has a plausible take on what it means to be a law)actually are and depending on your understanding of them the thesis of determinism might seem far from true. Actually, one of the essays on a book I am editing has very good scientific evidence and examples that point to the falsity of determinism and that indeterminism is more likely given the best science of our time regarding human behavior and how it unfolds. (Google “the dome” for an interesting scientific theory that calls determinism into question). Also, biology is quite far from claiming determinism is true, in fact many biologists tend to think it doesnt (see John Beatty’s Replaying Life’s Tape for some interesting microorganism studies that seem to call determinism into question). Notice I haven’t appealed to another branch of science (quantum physics) whch also has some interesting things to say about the truth of determinism.

WIth regards to your driving question I think the details matter. The driver, when actively deciding to take a turn, might be acting on reasons. It would be quite interesting to here a testable deterministic scientific study which will show that the reasons that are generated in a persons head, particular reasons, are deterministic. How is the reason to turn left generated? Good question. Further, even if they are determined in some magnificent way, as long as 2 reasons are available at the time of action then it is an open question to whether one reason must be acted on over the other. See (Mark Balaguer’s “Free Will as an Open Scientific Question for more on that).

Also, you use the word “volition” often as if it is the opposite or different from free will. Volition is simply the cognitive process that we are in fact questioning. One need not be a dualist to think we have free will. In fact, most philosophers reject dualism, even those who think that human volition, the process of decision, is free in a way that grounds moral responsibility.

With regards to causation there are two theories being thrown around by those who think we have libertarian free will (I am more amenable to a compatibilist understanding of free will but that’s a different bag of candy). You can go with agent causation or event causation see the links in this post for more on those details.

In the end, I think that our past experiences limit the options and dictate the sorts of options we have. However, I do think we have options and there is no good scientific evidence that suggests otherwise. I don’t think our pasts dictate each and every choice we make. Sure, they constrain what options we avail ourselves to but nearly all philosophers I have conversed with on the topic do not believe in the kind of free will that says we have an infinite amount of options with regards to our next action. But again, you jight be working with that as your definition of free will, and if so, sure we don’t have that. But no one discussing these matters is arguing for that sort of freedom because it clear we are limited beings with regards to our choices and options. The past experiences play a role in who we become as do the choices WE make.

I typed this on a whim so it may come off as ranting and it may read as incoherent at times. I’ll edit it in due time as I have been working around the clock on a paper for a neuroscience journal and it is due tomorrow.

Thanks for your response. I did google and read “the dome” as you suggested. I’ll keep this comment short and restrict myself to the one topic and ask one question. Which part of the theory explains “the ball” returning to an inert state halfway down?

Not sure what constructiveconservative means by “returning to an inert state halfway down”, but I wonder what explains the ball returning to an inert state when it gets to the top of the magical frictionless dome.
In the initial description, I question whether the ball can start off motionless at the top if the surface is frictionless (I don’t think such a surface can exist, even in principle). But accepting that the ball is motionless, is that not the same as saying it is balanced?
Then, what is the nature of the “spontaneous excitation” that prompts the ball to move? Whatever it is, even if it is a momentary asymmetry in the spatial distribution of the molecules comprising the ball, it would seem the excitation would be what determines the direction of the ball’s movement.
It appears to me that beneath all Norton’s equations there is no demonstration of a violation of determinism.

“Well, if we think that free will is, to quote Eddie Nahmias in his NYT article ” a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure.” then free will is still viable even in the picture that Harris has presented. ”

This definition is essentially saying that we have free-will because we possess the ability to make decisions/choices. I disagree and found this part of your argument and this assumption to be particularly weak. Whilst decisions do matter, simply making a choice when presented with options isn’t free will because the choice is made for us. This is my understanding of the picture Harris presents. Yes, choice and decision exists, but we as conscious agents are not free to pick any option – our mind inputs all the available data and spits out the correct answer, much like solving an equation. We may feel like we are deliberating over one option or the other, but ultimately a decision is made and we don’t author it.

Yes our minds have the opportunity to exercise cognitive decision making capacities and identify a desirable future and pursue it, but we are not the driver of the decision making. Our idea of what is a desirable future, the best way in which to pursue it, and the decision making tools at our disposal are all evolving behind the scenes. There is a large and complex decision tree behind any choice and we are really only consciously aware of the very last stages of this decision tree. How do we have free will if we do not control the decision making process from the onset? We are only free to do what our mind tells us.

We’re mainly talking about humans here, but the way I approach this problem is through comparing us with computers. As you mentioned there is not sufficient evidence to prove that humans don’t have free will, but neither is there evidence to determine that there is free will, seeing as the brain is so complex and how little we understand of it. But we don’t consider computers to have any amount of free will at all. If a computer does something unexpected, then we don’t assume it has acquired free will as one of the possibilities. We blame the problem on a bug in the program or operating system, a virus, etc. I don’t think almost anyone has seriously thought that any computer we have today has any amount of free will, and there’s no reason to. We can explain any problem that occurs by going back into the code and finding the problems. But if computers and us are all made of essentially the same building blocks, and we are not assuming a ‘ghost in the machine’ or a soul that an omnipotent being has granted us, then why do you leave open the possibility that there is some amount of free will for us, while closing the door to that possibility for computers? Thanks.

I think one thing your mistaken about is Harris’ conclusion. Rather than ‘free will is an illusion’, off the top of my head I’m sure I recall it being something more along the lines of ‘the illusion of free will is itself an illusion’.

Eddie Nahmia’s quote you refer to, ‘…without unreasonable external and internal pressures’, is exactly what Harris–as a neuroscientist–is challenging. If anything he’s bringing awareness to how unaware we really are to how our actions are influenced by external pressures.

I think Harris’ views on the possibility of free will will be revealed in his up and coming book on meditation.

I blitzed through Sam’s book and wasn’t impressed. Can’t recall his points (if he made any).

But your opening paras, I agree with ol’ Sam if that’s what he said: “Free will is an illusion”. I try to present this point in my own blog but just cannot get it across.
My reasons are that the future is the future is the Future, fixed and unalterable; and the Future is what actually happens , nothing else.

Also if God knows everything then of course He knows what you are going to choose to do at all times a very long time before you ever do. You can only ‘freely’ choose to do what you are going to choose, and have been going to choose since the year dot—long before you were even born, in fact.

I don’t believe in that or any other gods.
I’m a ‘raving atheist’ type; but I do enjoy flagging up contradictions when they assist my case.

‘God’s omniscience’ blows the case for Free Will, but true believers can’t face it—much like the omnipotent and infinitely compassionate (and merciful~!) Allah getting a big kick out of watching women being stoned to death for God-given natural sex, or flogged for going out on the street without their all encompassing black sack or a minder. Not good.
Or Christianity being the only true unique path to the same god of other only true unique paths

Free Will is a convenient illusion and nothing but; quite simply if something has happened then it was always going to happen. No?

The problem I have with this argument is that I cannot see how God’s omniscience provides a sufficient cause for human actions, or even a necessary condition. How does mere foreknowledge of an event “cause” that event to happen? Hume has a very interesting position regarding causes and it would be interesting to see what he would have answered to this argument in terms of causal arrangement.

I could accept this argument if we were referring to say, robots. Robots know nothing; they simply do what they’ve been programmed to do. However, even a robot can unpredictably malfunction and derail the programmer’s “foreknowledge” of what that robot is designed to do. This is a bad analogy because presumably, the human programmer can never be omniscience, because that would require both omnipotence and omnipresence. Just to make an observation.

But the question I raise here is that if in fact, free will is an illusion, then how is it possible that we should ever have come to that conclusion? It seems too early to make any such assertions when there is no universally accepted definition of consciousness. Until we can come to the point we can define consciousness and understand it, it would seem that the free will as an illusion argument is a premature statement of affairs.

Cause? Who gives a hoot about a cause? Irrelevant … for analogy think walking through a winding tunnel that was made and abandoned two hundred years ago—there’s a brick missing in the wall. Did you ’cause’ it? Or was it missing before you even entered the tunnel? There’s another in the darkness further up. Been missing since the tunnel was built, and you can’t see it yet. Did you somehow ’cause’ that too?

It seems simple enough to me: if ‘God’ knows what you are going to do—at any time in your whole lifespan—can you possibly do it any other way? This is where the Christian ‘free will’ smashes head on into God’s omniscience, a blatant contradiction. Contradictions are impossible, there’s only false premises. God’s omniscience and freewill are mutually excluding.

So why invoke God anyway—the future simply is the future. You had breakfast this morning, I imagine … on the day you were born, that breakfast lay in your future, no? I hope you enjoyed it, because on the day you were born you were doomed to that breakfast—and there was nothing you could ever have done to avoid it.

As for defining consciousness—for this very simple issue I can’t be bothered with all that, it is entirely irrelevant: use the every day tools of everyday life. You know,’ blogito ergo sum’.

“You had breakfast this morning, I imagine … on the day you were born, that breakfast lay in your future, no?”

Did it? I mean, when I (or someone else) was born, could you have predicted that I would eat that particular breakfast on that particular day? Could anyone have? Could even an omniscient being have been able to do that?

Well, leaving aside the fact that omniscience is effectively impossible due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (the mere fact of being able to observe quantum weirdness affects it), let’s say you have something with tremendous predictive capacity. I don’t think even it could predict certainties – though it could certainly predict an accurate range of options. For example, the likelihood of a person actually eating breakfast, and the various things they might have for breakfast.

“I hope you enjoyed it, because on the day you were born you were doomed to that breakfast—and there was nothing you could ever have done to avoid it.”

Seems that you are either making the typical mistake of forgetting that when dealing with probability, there are no such things as certainties until they actually happen, or you are being disingenuous. So let me ask you – how do you know that it was inevitable?

My own death lays out there in time and space, waiting for me to get to it. I can’t predict it (short of making it happen to order, something I’m disinclined to do). On the day I was born that death was/is out there and there’s nothing I can do to avoid it. Yours too, sadly.

Probability, uncertainty, predictability and stuff are all good clean fun as academic exercises but nonetheless obfuscations. This particular topic really is one where simplicity matters.
In truth I liken the discussion to the good old “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” and no matter how many learned sages convene and gravely discuss the matter with obeisance to revered ancient tomes … it’s irrelevant (even if it keeps them in a job).

Perhaps if. Perhaps if we knew all the relevant factors in time and space and had infinite instant computational power we could predict the inevitable; but I don’t think we’re going to get there any time soon. (Delete “if” … obviously we could.)

It is only our ignorance of the future that gives us the illusion of free will. The illusion is perfect (thank heavens).

As Doris Day put it, and I can’t put it any better, and you cannot argue it— “Que sera, sera”.

Prediction has everything to do with it. You’re basically trying to say that because various things are inevitable, there is no such thing as free will even though we can’t know how exactly they will happen until after they actually do happen, and that’s nonsensical. Literally, the one doesn’t really have anything to do with the other (which is why it’s nonsensical).

Yes, it’s true, everything alive will inevitably die at some point. But that fact doesn’t make the particular death that an individual will suffer inevitable, which is the whole point. Your statement that we might, someday, be able to predict everything is irrelevant, because we won’t be able to – the most we could do is predict probabilities of things happening.

As far as it goes, I know perfectly well that some kinds of “free will” are so much bunk. We don’t have the ability to ignore physical laws, for example, and there are plenty of other constraints on our actions. Any discussion about free will has to acknowledge those things, or else it’s meaningless.

The bottom line is this: you make choices for reasons. There is a “why” for every choice made. It is the “why” that is the driving force. So how can you have free will when you can’t control the “why”?

Another way to say it is, you fulfill a desire whenever you make a choice. The strongest desire always wins in a conscious decision. Since you cannot control your desire, you have no free will.

Very “Elizabeth Anscombe” with your “why” approach. Here’s a question for you, why must one be able to control the way in order to have control? You seem to be defining free will as the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want. No one believes in that sort of free will anymore. It’s the ability to act or not to act when presented with options, or something closer to that than your suggestion.

Your second way of describing it is contentious as well. David Hume has given us a plausible moral psychology, I’ll give you that (the strongest desire talk started with him). But, it’s not the only story in the running. I suggest reading Michael Bratman’s work on intentions for more on why the belief-desire model might be mistaken.

Further, Hume himself was a compatibilist about free will even granting the belief-desire model. So, free will is not discounted as easily as you may think.

I confess to being ignorant of specific philosophers and philosophies, and the conclusions I’ve drawn resulted from my own reasoning. I suppose it is futile to argue about free will without agreeing upon a definition. So I will say that I argue against free will in the context that it might matter to a supreme being who judges me on my behavior.

If I cannot control what I most desire when making a decision, and thus make that decision, how can I be held accountable? I can not think of a single example where someone makes a conscious decision that does not satisfy the stronger desire.

The perceived ability to choose, is really no more than our ability to analyze which choice should be more satisfying. It is the predictive ability of our brain at work.

Nice job then, you’re in good company with your conclusions (even if I disagree).

Do long-term desires have any more or less weight than short-term desires in your view? How about I have most long-term desire to achieve X but most short term desire to do Y? What happens in those cases.

Also, can we create our own desires by rationalizing? For instance, reflecting on and thinking about something until we desire it? Or how about wanting to desire something but not yet desiring it?

Here’s an example. I spent 10 years in college to get a PhD. Passing my pro-seminar is crucial to achieving that goal. Everything in my life has been geared to attaining that goal. Then, instead of waking up to go to my pro-sem class I decide to sleep in instead, fully aware that it is a bad decision. It’s bad because it is not in MY best interest to do so. I have what some call “weakness-of-will”. This seems to be the case where I desire the PhD more than an hour of sleep but I choose sleep anyway. Now, if you say that sleeping is my strongest desire (i) that seems weird considering how much effort I have made to attain the goal of getting the PhD and (ii) your theory cannot be disproved because you will just claim that whatever I do is my strongest desire. If (ii) then it is not a scientific theory because it cannot be disproved.

Regarding your example, you are correct in predicting my answer. Your (short term)desire to sleep in, simply outweighs your (long term)desire of academic success. The same can be said for those who eat ice cream instead of working out. They know it is bad, but at that moment, short term desire is simply overpowering long term desire. If they truly had free will, wouldn’t they always make the choice with the greater perceived benefit?

Yes, desires can be altered through rationalizing. But there must be a desire present to do so. Where does that desire come from? Genetics, or environment…who knows…but it still must be there.

It can be disproved as soon as they have a way of jacking in to your brain and measuring your relevant desires. It cannot be disproved today, but when the technology exists, it can be. If technology existed to prove and disprove everything, there would be no theories, only facts.

A desire to rationalize? Really? I must WANT to think in order to think? Sounds like a stretch to me. Also, if one learns how the power of thinking can change their future behavior why can’t it be said that this is the control needed for morally responsible behavior? So, if desires themselves can be altered by us then they are not primitive. Our subconscious also plays a role in our decisions, desire is not operating the subconscious so how can the belief desire model account for that? And, even if so, it seems that our ability to shape our subconscious could also ground the way it works in the future right? Again, this could ground our moral responsibility and this “power” to shape our futures sounds a lot like free will to me.

I meant there must be a desire to change our desires. Not a desire to rationalize. And that answers the rest of your reply. Conscious change requires that there be a desire to do so. How could one be condemned if they were never given the desire to be a better person? All the knowledge in the world will not help you if there is no desire to benefit from it.

We all know the benefits of eating right and exercising. It’s been known for decades if not centuries. I would say that if free will really existed, physical health would be a great place to put it to use. Does anyone really want to be fat and out of shape? Does that feel good to anyone? If not, then they should simply exercise their free will and eat right and work out to enjoy the proven long-term benefits.

But that’s not how it works. The overwhelming desire to eat something delicious often overpowers many long term desires of fitness. Desires control behavior.

I think you have a good point regarding the definition of terms. People on both sides of the free will debate seem to have the idea that it has to be defined in one particular way for any discussion to happen, but I don’t think that’s true. I think, rather, that it’s just important that both sides understand how the other defines it. As long as both understand what the other means, they don’t have to agree on one term to use.

This appears to be an endemic problem that people have – instead of taking the time to try to understand what another person means, we feel we have to make them agree to use our terminology (or that we have to use their terminology). I can’t imagine how much time and effort is ultimately wasted by doing this.

My biggest problem with a common position of people who argue against free will is that they seem to be saying that if we only all agreed that we can’t hold people morally responsible (because of the lack of free will), we could come up with truly effective ways to deal with their misbehavior. But I think that ignores human nature and what our ability to think conveys on us.

Even if the only thing that’s happening is us weighing our desires, even if we fundamentally don’t have a choice but to act in the way we act, our ability to think and reflect on things allows us to change and learn with experience. The way we act gives feedback which allows us to change if we’re willing to put the effort in. While many people do not do this, that’s more an example of inertia in action than determinism. If it seems to us that the effort exceeds our willingness to put in that effort, we find excuses to keep acting the same way. But we can overcome those excuses if we decide to. It’s just that most people don’t decide to because they feel they have better things to do.

“People on both sides of the free will debate seem to have the idea that it has to be defined in one particular way for any discussion to happen,…”
If one “side” defines topic A as being X and the other defines it as being Y, how can they ever agree on the nature or validity of A? Understanding what another person means is necessary for discussion; terminology is just agreement on the meaning of words in order to facilitate discussion. Definition and terminology are not the same thing.
One of my biggest problems with the positions of people who argue for free will is that they often want to introduce the issue of moral responsibility into the discussion from the outset. While free will and morally responsibility are closely associated in human affairs, the existence or non-existence of the former precedes assessment of the validity of the latter.
“…even if we fundamentally don’t have a choice but to act in the way we act, our ability to think and reflect on things allows us to change and learn with experience.”
There is a glaring contradiction there: thinking and reflecting on things are themselves mental actions; if we have no choice in how we act then we have no choice in how we think and reflect.
To then speak of being “willing to put the effort” into changing has a built-in assumption of free will, or else it is merely a description of an aspect of the person’s (determined) nature. The same applies to any instance of effort, of being willing to put in effort, of finding excuses to keep acting the same way, and of overcoming those excuses. If we “fundamentally don’t have a choice but to act in the way we act” then we don’t “have a choice” in any of those actions to which you refer.

You mean like how the word ‘bolt’ can refer to fastening securely, or fleeing? Or like how the word ‘custom’ can refer to a common practice, or special treatment? Or how ‘left’ can mean departed, or remaining behind? According to your logic, we cannot agree on the nature or validity of those words because they have contradictory meanings; yet somehow, we manage to do just that.

I agree that it’s important to make sure that someone understands just what you mean by something, but that isn’t what people tend to do in a debate like this. Instead, they tend to argue over whether the word should mean X or Y (or Z, or whatever), and thus try to control which definition is being used (and thus control the debate).

—-

I think you misread my statement on moral responsibility. My issue is with people who want to base moral responsibility around a paradigm that either includes or excludes free will, depending on their position. I was referring specifically to the latter in my post, though I don’t deny the former exists. I disagree with the idea that we can only decide on moral responsibility after we’ve hashed out whether free will exists or not.

—-

You appear to be operating under a flawed assumption here, specifically that the lack of choice means that an action will always result in an invariable outcome (which, in many cases, is true, but not in all cases). Even without free will, the existence of quantum randomness makes that unlikely. If you created a “save state” right after some action I performed but right before I stopped and thought about it, could you honestly say that I would inevitably and invariably come up with the same conclusions about it?

Oh, and since you appear to have misunderstood (from the tone of your post, it’s not surprising; you seem more interested in trying to prove yourself right than in taking time to think about it), what I meant was comparing the desire to put in effort with the prediction of the actual effort needed. Because many people are not good at predictions, let alone comparisons like these, they let inertia take hold. It’s easier for them to keep acting the same way they always acted than to put in the effort to change.

It’s also important to note that the mere fact of doing something changes things. If someone is lured by inertia into continuing to act the same as they always did, they lose that opportunity. Whereas a person who doesn’t let themselves get lured by inertia may well find reasons to do things differently.

In short, even if free will is nothing more than an illusion that exists inside the brain, it can still make a difference in what people actually do. A person who believes they have no choice can make a different choice than someone who believes they do.

“You mean like how the word ‘bolt’ can refer to fastening securely, or fleeing?”

No, I don’t mean anything that simplistic. It’s clear from this whole discussion that some people believe there are different kinds of free will. Unless it’s clear which kind is being argued for there is bound to be confusion. As I said: “terminology is just agreement on the meaning of words in order to facilitate discussion. Definition and terminology are not the same thing.” And as you said: “I agree that it’s important to make sure that someone understands just what you mean by something,…”. I don’t see any disagreement there.
Even if there is disagreement on what a term means, clarity of terminology allows discussion to proceed.
I didn’t misread your statement on moral responsibility: I may have misinterpreted it, but the remainder of your comment concerned how “our ability to think and reflect on things allows us to change and learn with experience” and how we can “change if we’re willing to put the effort in”. That and the reference to “finding excuses to keep acting the same way” seemed to indicate that you were arguing the case for some type or degree of free will and morally responsibility.

“I disagree with the idea that we can only decide on moral responsibility after we’ve hashed out whether free will exists or not.” Again, we appear to agree.

“You appear to be operating under a flawed assumption here, specifically that the lack of choice means that an action will always result in an invariable outcome…”

I don’t know how you took that from anything I wrote, so I cannot respond.

“It’s easier for [people] to keep acting the same way they always acted than to put in the effort to change.”

This is where it is not clear to me what you are saying. If you are suggesting that there is some kind of independent “essence” of a person observing the effect of free will, or lack thereof, on his or her actions or intentions, and able to intervene in what would otherwise occur; and if this “observer” may either “get lured by inertia” or “find reasons to do things differently,” then I suggest that no such independent “essence” is present. If there is no free will, then no actions, mental or physical, conscious or unconscious, considered or unconsidered, are, in this sense, free. I stress “no actions”, including “desire to put in effort” and “prediction of the actual effort needed” – everything that occurs within the mind.
If you are instead using phrases such as “lured by inertia” in an everyday sense, I don’t immediately see how it relates to the basic issue.

“In short, even if free will is nothing more than an illusion that exists inside the brain, it can still make a difference in what people actually do. A person who believes they have no choice can make a different choice than someone who believes they do.”

I agree that belief in free will or lack thereof can and often will be a factor, sometimes the crucial factor, in the choices people make.

” Mele, Libet (and now Harris) has no good reason to claim that what they are seeing in FMRI scans and other instruments used in RP experiments are in fact one’s decision or intention (or ACTUAL thought of either) to press a button (or perform any action for that matter) before the button has been pressed and not something like “an urge” to press them or perform an action.”
The brain when it thinks about taking an action activates neurons in the brain in the location it would as if it had taken that action. This would be expected when the individual is going through its options as to what action to take. This would account for why the button would only be pressed 60% of the time, as it would not always be the appropriate action or the chosen action.

That, I think, is why it’s possible to train skills through mental action, rather than just physical – because the brain actually triggers the synapses as if the action were really being performed rather than just in the mind. I’ve done this in my martial arts training – went through a kata in my mind as if I were actually doing it, even though I was physically standing still. I’ve little doubt that if someone had been running a MRI scan on me, they would have picked up brain activity corresponding to the actions I was mentally envisioning, even though I wasn’t actually doing anything.

I guess ‘free will’ is a pretty good grift given that courts, churches, whole societies and moral philosophers depend on it. Though as illustrated here, defining it can be tricky, depending upon whatever the definer is willing to accomplish.

Brain research seems to point toward a set of decision rules, much like a computer program written to make choices. Such rules can be to some extent, imposed by our DNA. E.G. brain scans that identify sociopaths among prisoners. Free will and a lot else, seems up for grabs.

But there’s another angle, seems to me. The way our species actually operates. Our societies set rules, assuming some percentage of violations and providing for that. Whether the violator ‘chose’ or followed an imperative is irrelevant. That works on two levels; it handles misbehavior and rewards Darwin.

So free will ends as a hassle for churches since they deal with sin. Societies and personal relationships deal with behavior and needn’t worry about why at that level.

One may say too, that as our decisions are only partly rational, our will is only partly free; that seems to me, pretty close to the likely truth. But then, we can freely decide to believe our wills are free, or not, right? Or at least, we believe that we can…

I agree with Harris. You accuse him of wrongly turning the issue into an ‘all or nothing’ affair. What he in fact does is refuse to grant special status to some brain processes over others. The processes of deliberating, choosing, and planning – as processes which can ultimately be traced back to a physical story in the brain – do not arise spontaneously, but rather from a causal story.

I think he sums up your argument very well when he suggests it is like a puppet embracing it’s strings.

Precisely. The granting of “special status to some brain processes over others” is something that appears time after time in these discussions, bearing witness to the conviction that something intrinsically impossible can or must be real because it feels so real.

A wise man in India, explained it thus: Man is like a cow tied to a pole with a rope, bound by the karmic debts and human nature , and the amount of free will he has is analogous only to the amount of freedom the rope allows. The argument strengthens the case for laws of nature to be causally deterministic of our lives. So does free will exist at all Yes, but it comes into play only when we make a conscious choice that we wont be governed by conditioned responses

The wise man completed his explanation of free will saying that as one progresses on the journey of spirituality, the rope of freedom becomes longer , allowing for greater access to authentic free will.

A “conscious choice that we wont (sic) be governed by conditioned responses” is not indicative of free will. If free will is an illusion, then that choice, like every other choice, is determined by the web of causes and events, both inside and outside our brains, leading up to that choice. Conditioned responses are just one aspect of human behavior. The absence of free will applies to the whole of human behavior, including all choices, however conscious or considered, without exception.
The laws of physics are not in any way or to any degree suspended inside our skulls. It is not karmic debts and human nature, but rather the laws of physics that tell us that human beings have no free will, authentic or otherwise.

“There are multiple interpretations on what the laws of nature are. Humean or necessitarian. Adopting one or the other will give you different answers to the questions we’re considering.”

It may be that one can use a different metaphysical interpretation about this or that, but the empirical evidence quite plainly suggests that what we define as the laws of nature or the laws of physics (if we want to call them that) is the patterns of energy transformation and motion (and/or causes of those patterns) of physical stuff in the universe. Regardless of what metaphysical interpretation you take, the scientific evidence suggests that the laws of physics apply to everything we’ve ever experimented on in the universe. There is no evidence to suggest that these “patterns of energy transformation and motion” cease simply because we are talking about brains or organic biochemical reactions. They still apply in their entirety. Thus, examining empirical evidence will bring a person to a single answer to these questions — namely that free will can’t exist in a universe that is either deterministic or random, and the laws of physics (patterns of energy transformation and motion) suggest that the universe is adequately determined (high degree of predictability) with an underlying fundamental quantum randomness. In order to hold a different view requires ad hoc assumptions not supported by physical reality and physical evidence. Even if I developed a metaphysical argument that showed how “determinism isn’t really determinism” or how “randomness isn’t really randomness” or doesn’t apply in some case or other, the physical evidence tells us otherwise. The physical evidence shows us that nothing has circumvented the laws of physics (patterns of energy transformation and motion), and thus our brains are no exception to the rule.

Had a debate over cigars and scotch with a friend recently…he asked me to read Sam Harris’ “The Moral Landscape” and I made him read Plato’s Republic, then changed my mind and asked him to read Rebecca Goldstein’s “Plato at the Googleplex”.

So far, not finding Harris’ thinking very clear. I honestly can’t follow it.

“But, then again, more radical interpretations of the data tend to sell more books. I’m not suggesting that Harris curtailed his interpretation to fit this mold, but, by failing to wrestle with the piles of philosophical literature written on the topic he was acting academically irresponsible in making his claims.”

This sounds about right. It’s in the language that he uses, the way he attacks religion, the way he draws false lines. Haven’t finished it yet–just started–so can’t make a final verdict. However, he seems to be saying you’re either a religious nut who can’t be moral without invoking God or you’re a liberal relativist.

I’ve never found Sam Harris to be that great a philosopher. I haven’t read but part of ‘The Moral Landscape,’ though. Personally, I’m a moral nihilist. Instead of Sam Harris, I’d recommend reading Richard Joyce. He has a book titled ‘The Myth of Morality.’

Pretty much what I thought when I heard Harris’s arguments against ‘free will’. I’ve listened to him an Jerry Coyne talk rather matter-of-factly that ‘free will’ is obviously an illusion, and therefore no one is actually responsible for anything they do etc etc.

The thing that I don’t get about their argument, is that one of their main ‘requisites’ for free will seems to be that we need to be capable of making a choice that we wouldn’t make………but, if WE wouldn’t make it, then how is that OUR choice? Lol. Seems like a bizarre thing to suggest to me.

When they say we are simply at the mercy of our brain and its thought processes, and that since we cannot control our thought processes, it is they that make our ‘choices’ for us, and ‘we’ are not actually choosing anything………………what in the name of christ are they talking about? We ARE our brain. ‘We’ ARE our brain’s thought processes – that’s literally what ‘we’ are and what makes ‘us’ us!

I really don’t understand what they mean by this; it’s like THEY’RE the ones suggesting there’s this meta-brain that exists outside of the regular brain, and the meta-brain is ‘us’ and the regular brain is something else – but the meta-brain is at the mercy of the regular brain, and therefore doesn’t have free will….0o

It’s utterly bizarre.

Even if determinism is accurate, and all of our ‘choices’ are technically ‘decided’ from the moment of the big bang – I still don’t see how that means we don’t have free will, because although those choices are already set in motion, they are still MY choices; they are what happens when my body with my brain and my thought-processes come into contact with outside stimuli. It doesn’t matter that I would make the same choices again and again in a million ‘runs’ of the same universe – because those ARE my choices, those are the choices that happen when I – ME – are given those variables.

Any other choice wouldn’t actually be mine! I don’t know what they mean when they say I cannot make a choice that I wouldn’t make – I mean, of course I bloody can’t, how can I make someone ELSE’S choice?

As for their nonsense about no one being to blame for their behaviour no matter how horrific, because the are simply the ‘victims’ of their own brains and their thought-processes – and that any person who feels nothing wrong with committing acts of rape or murder should be thought of as having a brain ‘tumor’ that causes them to be that way – again, I don’t know what they are talking about.
People ARE their brains; that rapist thought-process IS the person themself, so why can’t they be held responsible?

Saying I can’t hate a rapist for being a rapist because they have the brain of a rapist, has to be one of the most asinine things I’ve ever heard.

You are the perfect example of a compatibilist. I don’t understand your position (or any compatibilist), because if all our “choices” are technically “decided” since the big bang, than how can we possibly have free will?
Yes, your brain (or you) is making the “decision”, but this decision is nothing more than an effect PRE-DETERMINED by other causes. Where is the freedom in that?
You even go as far as to say that even if you make the same choices in a million “runs” of the same universe, you still have free will. How is this possible? That would mean that I could guess EVERY choice you’d make, before you make them! How is that FREE will?

Determinism is incompatible with “freedom from causation”, but it is not incompatible with biological organisms choosing for themselves what they will do next, which is what we ordinary folk refer to as “free will”.

The debate between philosophers and theologians over freedom from reliable causation (via indeterminism or miracles) should stop using “free will” and clearly call their debate “determinism versus freedom from causation”.

Jose, compatibilism gives up on some measure of freedom, because to require absolute freedom means giving up entirely on “will”, ie. if there’s no reason you actually made the choice you did, then your choice was effectively random, and how is that “will”?

So you have two choices here: either you throw up your hands and say, “‘will’ is fundamentally inconsistent with ‘freedom’ and so there’s no such thing as free will”, or you can ask the question whether absolute freedom is actually necessary for free will and moral responsibility.

As the Frankfurt cases show, ability to do otherwise is NOT necessary for free will, and so absolute freedom is also not necessary. As such, Compatibilism recovers our intuitions about what free will entails.

“As the Frankfurt cases show, ability to do otherwise is NOT necessary for free will, and so absolute freedom is also not necessary. As such, Compatibilism recovers our intuitions about what free will entails.”

The ability to do otherwise (less randomness) is necessary for free will, which is why free doesn’t exist. While it is true that this kind of free will can’t exist even in principle because it can’t be free from causation, that just goes to show that people’s intuitions about free will are incorrect. That is, when people have retribution toward others or believe that they should be punished AS IF they could have done otherwise, etc., is fallacious in the absence of this impossible form of free will. This goes to show why it is important that we reject using the term free will in this intuitive sense and instead emphasize to people the causal relations involved with a series of events and do our best to control those causal relations moving forward in order to actualize the most beneficial future given our state of knowledge.

Lage: “The ability to do otherwise (less randomness) is necessary for free will, which is why free doesn’t exist.”

Even supposing I accept that, Compatibilism already has a notion of the ability to do otherwise “less randomness”, which contradicts your point that free will cannot exist.

Lage: “While it is true that this kind of free will can’t exist even in principle because it can’t be free from causation, that just goes to show that people’s intuitions about free will are incorrect.”

You have yet to show that people’s intuition even suggests they believe they must be free from causation.

Lage: “That is, when people have retribution toward others or believe that they should be punished AS IF they could have done otherwise, etc., is fallacious in the absence of this impossible form of free will.”

Moral responsibility does not entail retributive justice, so this sentence simply doesn’t follow from accepting the existence of free will.

Finally, you quoted my text where I cite the Frankfurt cases that *disprove* that the ability to do otherwise is necessary for free will, but provided no argument or citation to contradict them. You just restated your position, which we’ve already discussed at length in this thread.

From a pragmatic, system analysis viewpoint, “holding responsible” operates to identify the cause(s) of some unnecessary harm in order to apply corrective measures to prevent similar future harms.

The process is only looking backward to understand the scenario in which the harm occurred. To aid this understanding, we examine events and consider how things might have been different if the causal agents had done otherwise.

If we were correcting a child, we would think through the scenario and suggest what the child might have done differently to satisfy his needs at the time.

If we are correcting a criminal through rehabilitation we would do similar things, provide missing education, counseling, and other means to offer better options for the next time that the offender finds himself in a similar situation.

If we are reviewing our own prior choice that didn’t turn out as well as we hoped, we would also be looking at how we might have done otherwise.

The reason I bring this up is that the inevitability of the prior act is an irrelevant fact.

The utility of “I could have done otherwise” comes entirely from the future, not from the past. If I realize a better choice was available to me in the past, then I may give more value to that choice in the future.

Since these are the realistic scenarios in which “I could have done otherwise” actually comes up in real life, arguing over the metaphysics of inevitability has very little practical utility.

“The reason I bring this up is that the inevitability of the prior act is an irrelevant fact. ”

Yes, “how we might have done otherwise” is a hypothetical based on the hind-sight understanding that a different action taken would have theoretically led to a better outcome given this knowledge (even though we wouldn’t have done differently in that past circumstance even if repeated, less randomness). However, no, as I’ve explained multiple times, the inevitability of the prior act isn’t an irrelevant fact, because the fact of inevitability is a part of the knowledge base we need to make the most informed choices regarding our behavior. It is no exception to an informed body of knowledge. If I realize the fact that behaviors are inevitable, that will alter my behavior and attitudes toward the person committing the act by illustrating for example that retribution and vengeance taken out on a criminal is irrational and stupid (even if corrective rehabilitation is necessary and reasonable). So the fact of inevitability is not irrelevant as I’ve tried to illustrate multiple times now. If it were irrelevant, then there wouldn’t be two different behavioral outcomes from people that know about inevitability versus those who don’t. Until people know about the concept more thoroughly (instead of being misled by their intuitions), there will still be people desiring barbaric practices such as the death penalty, and there will still be hatred that motivates people into voting for all sorts of harmful, toxic legislation, and that motivates them to teach their children the same nonsense.

Yes, everybody understands cause and effect to varying degrees and also has a conception of what we call deliberate choice. But MOST people don’t think of their deliberate choices as being inevitable, because most people don’t consistently apply causal principles to their conception of conscious thought and willed actions. They think of thoughts and behaviors as resulting from something that is not bound by inevitability (even though they are clearly wrong about that). Some kind of causa sui thinking and deliberation is assumed intuitively instead. You and I know that this is impossible to have, but most people believe we have this ability because they haven’t overridden their intuitions with a minimum level of exposure to philosophy that deals with the topic.

This is why inevitability has to be understood consistently and completely and thus incorporated in people’s conception of free will (if they want to call it that, which is fine, because a moniker is less important than its semantic content). It needs to be incorporated in order for people to make more responsible decisions regarding how to structure society, how to treat criminals, how to raise their children, etc. A person who understands and applies the concept of inevitability is indeed going to have a different behavioral outcome than a person who does not. This is what I’ve been arguing all along, and I don’t know why on earth you fail to acknowledge it.

“They are more likely to treat offenders differently because of their beliefs about what is just and what is unjust.”

Thanks, as you’ve proven my point for me. What factors do you think are involved with people’s beliefs about what is just and what is unjust? Hmm…

If a person doesn’t have a consistent application of inevitability in terms of their conception of people’s actions and what consequences are rational and justified given those actions, they will be more likely to hold feelings of retribution and vengeance in the case of any harmful acts committed and this will lead to beliefs that reinforce excessive punishment rather than simply what is required for rehabilitation and justice (which should be based on the most well-informed and rational moral framework available, so that ideas of justice are agreed upon simply by being rational and having access to the same best-informed body of facts). Thus, a person’s level of understanding of inevitability in terms of whether they apply it consistently or not to the willed actions of others, DOES change the behavioral outcome because it is a factor that definitely affects their perception of others and lets certain emotional states override their rationality thus leading to irrational foundations for their conception (their beliefs) of what is just and what is unjust — and thus to the detriment of society.

“Even supposing I accept that, Compatibilism already has a notion of the ability to do otherwise “less randomness”, which contradicts your point that free will cannot exist.”

Which would mean that that notion of compatibilism is false. It is logically impossible to have an ability to do otherwise (less randomness) given deterministic causal chains. Since determinism and indeterminism (randomness) are the only two logical possibilities, and both lead to the lack of an ability to have done otherwise (less randomness), there is no way out of this predicament for compatibilists. Instead, all they can do is change the definition of free will to something else, which is fine and dandy, but it doesn’t actually show then how causa sui free will is compatible with determinism. It merely shifts the topic elsewhere.

“You have yet to show that people’s intuition even suggests they believe they must be free from causation.”

I have yet to show this? Isn’t it obvious? Anyone that feels that they have control over their decisions is intuiting that they are free from causal constraints leading to inevitable decisions. Why don’t you simply ask most people that choose to do something, “Hey do you think you could have chosen to do differently there?” Most people will say “yes” with most events and circumstances (you could question them about easy mundane tasks like choosing what to watch on television, and most would likely intuit that they could have chosen to watch something else, that they didn’t feel causally forced to pick the show they eventually picked). This is because intuitively we don’t see the causal chain in our brain and from the environment that leads to our decisions. We think we are pulling it out of thin air freely, and don’t feel anything analogous to coercion in doing so. Do you not have these intuitions? Do you feel and intuit that your decisions are all locked in for you before you are conscious of them? I doubt it.

“Moral responsibility does not entail retributive justice, so this sentence simply doesn’t follow from accepting the existence of free will.”

If a person believes that a criminal that murdered their family could have chosen to do differently, but didn’t (which is the case, if people accept the classical notion of free will), they are much more likely to lead toward a feeling of retribution. So this sentence does follow.

“Finally, you quoted my text where I cite the Frankfurt cases that *disprove* that the ability to do otherwise is necessary for free will, but provided no argument or citation to contradict them. You just restated your position, which we’ve already discussed at length in this thread.”

Read my previous comments above in this reply. To add, since your criticism is fair, I’ll show why Frankfurt’s inference is incorrect. Let’s start by stating one of Frankfurt’s examples (grabbed from the Wiki):

” Frankfurt’s examples involve agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. Here is a typical case:

Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq just prior to voting. Ms White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald’s head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic although, owing to Ms. White’s device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.

If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise (that is, the principle of alternate possibilities is false). Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior.

Having rebutted the principle of alternate possibilities, Frankfurt suggests that it be revised to take into account the fallacy of the notion that coercion precludes an agent from moral responsibility. It must be only because of coercion that the agent acts as he does. The best definition, by his reckoning, is this: “[A] person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise. ”

Sandro, here we can see Frankfurt’s error. He supposed that the reason why Donald was not free to do otherwise is because of Ms. White having the ability to use her mind-control device and overturn Donald’s decision. However we can see that Ms. White’s device is no different than the causal laws that govern Donald’s brain ALL the time. So even though Ms. White didn’t activate her device, and even if Donald’s brain wasn’t connected to it in the first place, his brain was nevertheless governed by something else (the laws of physics that govern the neurochemical events that lead to his thoughts, actions, etc.). As we can see by the last comment there, by Frankfurt’s own reckoning, a person is NOT morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise. By Frankfurt introducing Ms. White’s device, he was trying to show that Donald didn’t have the freedom to do otherwise in that particular case, and yet still made the decision of his own accord (since Ms. White didn’t have to use it after all). By noting that the “decision made of his own accord” was one made by a deterministic brain that has no freedom to do otherwise (less randomness), Frankfurt’s case is self-refuting because Donald lacked the freedom all along (even without Ms. White’s device taken into consideration).

Proof:
1) That which precedes me is deterministically inevitable.
2) The decision process that happens within me is also deterministic and my choice is therefore also inevitable.
3) It is incontrovertibly true that a decision was made: multiple options were present at the beginning, an evaluation took place, and a choice was output. The options and the choice are empirically verifiable, especially if I worked it out on paper.
4) It is also incontrovertibly true that it was me that made the decision, for my own purpose and my own reasons. The process occurred within me and in no other location within the universe.

“Proof:
1) That which precedes me is deterministically inevitable.
2) The decision process that happens within me is also deterministic and my choice is therefore also inevitable.
3) It is incontrovertibly true that a decision was made: multiple options were present at the beginning, an evaluation took place, and a choice was output. The options and the choice are empirically verifiable, especially if I worked it out on paper.
4) It is also incontrovertibly true that it was me that made the decision, for my own purpose and my own reasons. The process occurred within me and in no other location within the universe. ”

Yes, I have no problem accepting your first two premises for the sake of argument (even if determinism isn’t actually true that is). Number 3 I can accept as long as you are willing to concede that the decision being made is analogous to a computer making a decision, in that it is accomplished through mechanistic processes even if biochemical rather than synthetic. Number 4, I’ll also accept that if you concede that “you” and “your purposes” and “your reasons” are ultimately constructed from neurochemical structures and processes, which are themselves governed by physical laws. So yes, “you” exist and have “free will” in the sense that you’d like to use the terms, but it isn’t the impossible causa sui free will that most people intuit that they have as well as the notion you’ve presented. Most people believe they have both types of “free will” even though the latter is impossible.

Number 3 I can accept as long as you are willing to concede that the decision being made is analogous to a computer making a decision…

But I would reverse that. What happens in the computer is analogous to what we do. As of yet, the computer has no reason of its own to calculate, other than to serve our purpose and our reasons. Biological organisms come with their own built-in purpose, to survive, thrive, and reproduce. That animates living things to acquire from the environment the food, water, shelter, and so on that are required to sustain our lives. To that end, living stuff causes changes in the environment and in themselves and in each other.

but it isn’t the impossible causa sui free will that most people intuit that they have as well

A cause cannot rationally be required to cause itself before it can be said to cause other things. No one gives birth to themselves, and yet each of us is capable of purposeful causation of other events.

Something must be eternal. I generalize it as “stuff in motion”. “Stuff” is the variety of forms that matter may take. “Motion” is both the movement and also the transformation of stuff into other stuff. For example, the super-condensed form of stuff in a “black hole” reaches a point where it explodes outward, transforming into a universe of particles, atoms, stars, and planets.

“But I would reverse that. What happens in the computer is analogous to what we do.”

Same difference. The point is that humans and computers are analogous to one another in that there are mechanistic processes that ultimately “make the decisions” for both, regardless of the different mechanisms employed for each.

“A cause cannot rationally be required to cause itself before it can be said to cause other things. No one gives birth to themselves, and yet each of us is capable of purposeful causation of other events. ”

This is true, but most people don’t realize the inconsistency in their views which is why they need to learn about it. They need to learn that our thoughts and behaviors are ultimately caused by mechanistic processes that aren’t in our control. They are not “self-caused” by us, free from the causal chain, as this is impossible. Most people don’t keep this in mind within their theory of mind and autonomy and so forth.

“Something must be eternal. I generalize it as “stuff in motion”. “Stuff” is the variety of forms that matter may take. “Motion” is both the movement and also the transformation of stuff into other stuff. For example, the super-condensed form of stuff in a “black hole” reaches a point where it explodes outward, transforming into a universe of particles, atoms, stars, and planets.”

Well it doesn’t have to be eternal, necessarily, but we can assume so for the sake of argument. As for your latter claim about black holes, though off topic, isn’t quite right. There is a hypothesis that for every black hole created there is a “white hole” that emerges from its center thus instantly giving birth to another universe and there is also a hypothesis that as a black hole evaporates away, as the last bit of matter evaporates, this in turn produces the birth of a new universe in other spatial dimensions that we can’t access — but both of these are merely hypotheses (not matters of fact) and don’t have a means of being falsified (yet, if ever). Anyway, a minor quibble about a side topic so not as important for this discussion. I dabble in astrophysics and cosmology as well so I had to say something about it either way…

Lage: “Instead, all they can do is change the definition of free will to something else, which is fine and dandy, but it doesn’t actually show then how causa sui free will is compatible with determinism. It merely shifts the topic elsewhere.”

Except you’re assuming that this is some canonical, universally accepted definition of free will. This is patently false. As I’ve already mentioned, legal systems that long predate the philosophical debate over determinism vs. free will already set a precedent for “freedom” that has nothing to do with determinism, and it’s colloquially obvious that this is exactly how ordinary people understand the notion of freedom, ie. simply as “freedom from coercion from other agents”.

Coercion is a concept that doesn’t apply to non-agents, which means arguments about agent choice being coerced by lower-level forces are simply expressing a category error.

Lage: “I have yet to show this [that people’s intuition of free choice must be free from determinism]? Isn’t it obvious? Anyone that feels that they have control over their decisions is intuiting that they are free from causal constraints leading to inevitable decisions.”

No, it’s not obvious at all. In fact, as I pointed above and in earlier posts, determinism has no bearing on legal decisions over free choice, which is the primary view most people will encounter in their lives. People don’t consider that they’re free from causality, they simply reason whether they’re free of coercion from other agents.

Lage: “If a person believes that a criminal that murdered their family could have chosen to do differently, but didn’t (which is the case, if people accept the classical notion of free will), they are much more likely to lead toward a feeling of retribution. So this sentence does follow.”

Even if I were to accept “much more likely”, which I don’t, “much more likely” is not “necessarily”, so your conclusion literally doesn’t follow.

Any formulation that denies free will due to determinism can entail the same conclusions of retributive justice as you believe follow from Compatibilism if you simply accept the premise that retribution *works* to redress injustice, change behaviour and/or deter future crime. Free will is a complete red herring to this question. In either framework, you need more assumptions, like “modifying behaviour is the goal” or “deterrence is the goal”, and the effectiveness of punitive to either of these goals isn’t supported by evidence.

Lage: “Sandro, here we can see Frankfurt’s error. He supposed that the reason why Donald was not free to do otherwise is because of Ms. White having the ability to use her mind-control device and overturn Donald’s decision. However we can see that Ms. White’s device is no different than the causal laws that govern Donald’s brain ALL the time.”

Except it is, because the device is controlled by another agent, not the very rules that make Donald who he is, and make him act as he does. Ms White is not Donald, and is not part of his natural decision process. This is why it’s coercion, and Frankfurt’s objection stands.

Further, Donald + Ms. White as a composite entity is quite different from Donald himself. Any moral responsibility that applies to the Donald+White composite does not necessarily transitively apply to Donald, only those choices attributed solely to the Donald component itself, which is the point of Frankfurt’s argument.

As I expressed earlier, your nature defines your choice, but to also have a choice in your nature is irreducibly circular and ill-defined. Free will does not require the latter, it only requires you to be free to make choices according to your nature, and responsibility naturally follows.

Marvin did a good job outlining the steps quite clearly.

Lage: “Number 3 I can accept as long as you are willing to concede that the decision being made is analogous to a computer making a decision, in that it is accomplished through mechanistic processes even if biochemical rather than synthetic.”

Expressed this way, or reversed as Marvin suggests, I agree. Except the difference between computers and minds is that minds can *learn* from past decisions, and thus make a different choice when faced with the same circumstances in the future. This is the meaningful form of PAP in Compatibilism, not the hypothetical, useless time-travelling type incompatibilists insist upon.

If we can create a computer program that implements this same process, then it too will have free will. At first it won’t be morally responsible for its choices, the way we don’t hold babies responsible for their choices, but they acquire more and more responsibility the more they learn and understand.

And while you consistently claim that people intuit that they have free choice, this isn’t definitively supported by evidence, so your appeals to intuition still aren’t convincing.

“Except you’re assuming that this is some canonical, universally accepted definition of free will. This is patently false. As I’ve already mentioned, legal systems that long predate the philosophical debate over determinism vs. free will already set a precedent for “freedom” that has nothing to do with determinism, and it’s colloquially obvious that this is exactly how ordinary people understand the notion of freedom, ie. simply as “freedom from coercion from other agents”. ”

No, not at all. Rather I’m pointing out that the intuitive definition of free will that people assume with use (not legal systems’ usage) is a libertarian notion of free will, not simply a version of autonomy that is free from explicit coercion (even if people see the coercion as the primary thing that needs to be eliminated for free will to exist, it’s not the only thing that needs to be eliminated). Yes, while true that “ordinary people” understand the notion of freedom as freedom from coercion, they also tend to ascribe a causa sui, libertarian attribute to free will which is illogical (as Marvin pointed out earlier, which I have been saying all along).

“Coercion is a concept that doesn’t apply to non-agents, which means arguments about agent choice being coerced by lower-level forces are simply expressing a category error.”

This is irrelevant, because coercion isn’t the only factor that negates libertarian free will, which I think is very common among laymen (even if not common among philosophers, including ourselves).

“No, it’s not obvious at all. In fact, as I pointed above and in earlier posts, determinism has no bearing on legal decisions over free choice, which is the primary view most people will encounter in their lives. People don’t consider that they’re free from causality, they simply reason whether they’re free of coercion from other agents.”

Determinism having no bearing on legal decisions is beside the point and irrelevant to the points being made here. People DO consider themselves to be free from causality when they think that given the same initial conditions, they could have chosen to do differently (less randomness). This is a plain fact because there is no other logical possibility. If someone believes that they or someone else could have chosen to do differently given the same initial conditions in some scenario, then even if they otherwise believe in determinism (causality, rationality, etc.), they are just failing to apply causal determinism universally/consistently because of an error in their reasoning. So then we see people thinking contradictory things about their not being free from causality, yet still being free from causality. It’s illogical, but most people simply haven’t ironed out this inconsistency because it plays on our intuitions of having causa sui behaviors, thoughts, etc.

“Even if I were to accept “much more likely”, which I don’t, “much more likely” is not “necessarily”, so your conclusion literally doesn’t follow.”

Why don’t you accept “much more likely”? Technically speaking, my conclusion DOES necessarily follow in the sense that a person’s perspective of the criminal and criminal’s actions will necessarily depend on their conception of free will. It just doesn’t necessarily follow that a person will behave in a retributive way. There are lots of factors that influence a person’s behavior toward someone else who has wronged them, but nevertheless it does necessarily follow that their perspective of the criminal and criminal’s actions will depend on whether or not they believe the criminal could have chosen to do differently given the same initial conditions. And as I added, I believe that this is much more likely to cause retributive inclinations, simply because those inclinations are irrational once one rejects libertarian free will.

“Any formulation that denies free will due to determinism can entail the same conclusions of retributive justice as you believe follow from Compatibilism if you simply accept the premise that retribution *works* to redress injustice, change behaviour and/or deter future crime. Free will is a complete red herring to this question.”

Yes, if by “entail the same conclusions”, you mean that the external behavior toward the criminal might not change — if hypothetically speaking, those behaviors were found to be the most effective for deterrence and rehabilitation and if it was found to be an ethically optimal solution — then maybe. However, then the REASONS and justification behind those “retributive” behaviors would entail that they are by definition no longer “retributive”, but rather are now a rationally arrived at conditioning principle based on the acceptance of determinism and the rejection of libertarian free will. Free will is not a red herring, because people’s views on free will affect the reasons and intentions for why they behave as they do toward others. If I push a fat man off a bridge in order to stop a train from killing four people stuck on the track, that is very different than if I push a fat man off a bridge because I get pleasure from it, and it just so happens by coincidence that it prevents four people stuck on the track from getting killed. Likewise for a retributive attitude toward a criminal based on fallacious reasoning versus a non-retributive attitude that employs rationally derived tactics to accomplish the same level of deterrence. Even if they both accomplish the same deterrence, one was arrived at through reason and rationality based on the most facts possible (including consequentialist facts), whereas the other is based on emotion supported by misleading intuitions about some magic causa sui libertarian free will.

“Except it is, because the device is controlled by another agent, not the very rules that make Donald who he is, and make him act as he does. Ms White is not Donald, and is not part of his natural decision process. This is why it’s coercion, and Frankfurt’s objection stands.”

I disagree. You are not recognizing that the other agent is likewise controlled by her own natural decision process that is just as “out of her control” as Donald’s is. You can try to employ an infinite regress of folk-psychological “agents” but that won’t get you anywhere because they are all fundamentally based on the same kinds of deterministic neurochemical processes that Donald’s brain had to begin with. So Frankfurt’s objection fails in that he said himself that “a person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise.”, and with causally deterministic brain processes operating on him and on Ms. White, Donald did what he did solely because he could not have done otherwise. Likewise, if I connect a computer to another computer that can affect it’s outputs, I would not be correct in saying that prior to this connection the first computer was free, but after the connection, it failed to be free. Rather, it just becomes a compounded system of two “not-free” computers.

“As I expressed earlier, your nature defines your choice, but to also have a choice in your nature is irreducibly circular and ill-defined. Free will does not require the latter, it only requires you to be free to make choices according to your nature, and responsibility naturally follows.”

I agree. But my point is that most people DON’T agree with this because so many of them hold the illogical conception of causally-disconnected libertarian free will because they don’t apply determinism/causality consistently to their theory of mind. As a result, their conception of responsibility tends to be muddled as well (even if it is pragmatically effective). Don’t get me wrong, I think you and I are largely in agreement here (we both reject the notion of libertarian free will), but my main point is that most people don’t realize that it is illogical for our actions to be free from causation and yet still bound by causation. However, they must be holding these two inconsistent beliefs if they concede to causal determinism (generally) while also believing that a person could have chosen to do differently given the same initial conditions (which is acausal and contradictory to the first belief). That’s my main impetus for this discussion.

“Expressed this way, or reversed as Marvin suggests, I agree. Except the difference between computers and minds is that minds can *learn* from past decisions, and thus make a different choice when faced with the same circumstances in the future. This is the meaningful form of PAP in Compatibilism, not the hypothetical, useless time-travelling type incompatibilists insist upon.”

Yes, and this is becoming a reality with AI. The more general point I was making by analogizing our brains with computers is that they are both employing mechanistic processes that are bound by causality. The brain may constantly be “reprogrammed” by the environment and have it’s hardware updated in the process, but this could be done with a computer as well (in principle), and without the intervention of a “programmer”. That was my only point for the analogy.

“And while you consistently claim that people intuit that they have free choice, this isn’t definitively supported by evidence, so your appeals to intuition still aren’t convincing.”

Admittedly, I arrived at this position primarily from all of my interactions with people over the years. It was far more rare for me to find people like me that explicitly voiced a belief that “a person could NOT have chosen to do differently given the same initial conditions”, whereas I find people all the time saying things like “they clearly knew what they were doing and could have chosen not to pull the trigger…” or what-have-you. If you honestly believe that the former person is more common than the latter, I’d need to see studies that support that. Which means the studies need to formulate questions very carefully in order to distinguish between people that believe in libertarian free will and those that don’t and those that believe causality is necessary for rational thought in the first place. The secondary force for my position comes from what I’ve read concerning human psychology, primarily the unconscious mind and our intuitions. I haven’t looked at specific studies however on this particular issue, but rather just general reading in the field. Also, being a former Christian and meeting a plethora of people from different religious faiths, I haven’t met a single Abrahamic theist (which comprises most people in the world) that wasn’t a libertarian free will-er. I believe this is because these religious beliefs which necessarily require that the sinner is free to have chosen to do otherwise given the same temptation/conditions, and they play on primitive human intuitions. It is far easier to get a follower for a religion that is based on our intuitions rather than against them. Which is why when we go back in history, we see more and more primitive religions that reinforce racism, retribution, etc. Quite frankly, they are among the most intuitive conclusions one can draw without actually applying rationality and critical reasoning, because we intuitively believe in libertarian free will, racism, etc. It is our rational minds that overcome these intuitions after much learning, practice and conscious effort. My two cents anyway. Peace!

Jose, There are at least three impossible freedoms: freedom from causation, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Because “free” can never rationally imply any of these, we should assume in most cases that it doesn’t.

To be relevant, “free” need only reference a single meaningful constraint. In the case of free will the constraint would be any coercion to choose or act against our own will. When our choices are forced upon us by someone else, through subordination, subjugation, or coercion, then clearly our will is not free. In the absence of such constraints, we are acting of our own free will.

Each biological organism, from petunias to people, has a purpose which is located in no other place within the physical universe. The purpose is to survive, thrive, and reproduce. To that end it causes stuff. Trees send roots into the ground, sometimes splitting rocks. People have walked on the moon and raised the temperature of the planet. We make stuff happen that would never have happened without us deliberately choosing to do so.

To be sure, everything that happens is inevitable. Every decision we make of our own free will is also inevitable. These two facts, autonomy and inevitability, are simultaneously true in every choice we make. But only autonomy is relevant and meaningful. It is important to know who did what and why.

Inevitability, on the other hand, is a trivial and useless fact. It cannot help us make any decision because whatever we decide to do will have been inevitable. The only wise thing we can do about inevitability is to acknowledge it and then ignore it. Those that dwell upon it and try to draw meaningful implications usually end up with fatalism.

True determinism recognizes ALL causes. And every biological organism is a purposeful causal agent acting upon its own interest.

“To be sure, everything that happens is inevitable. Every decision we make of our own free will is also inevitable. These two facts, autonomy and inevitability, are simultaneously true in every choice we make. But only autonomy is relevant and meaningful. It is important to know who did what and why.

Inevitability, on the other hand, is a trivial and useless fact. It cannot help us make any decision because whatever we decide to do will have been inevitable. The only wise thing we can do about inevitability is to acknowledge it and then ignore it. Those that dwell upon it and try to draw meaningful implications usually end up with fatalism. ”

I wholly disagree Marvin. Inevitability is important and thus is a useful fact. The reason why it is useful is in the sense that it can guide us to behave more rationally given our knowledge of causal constraints. For example, if most people realized that their intuitive notion of free will is really the kind you describe as being impossible (which I agree is impossible since we can’t have freedom from causation while still having a will)– if most people realized that a person could have chosen to do differently, then retribution for another’s actions becomes irrational and pointless. Thus, we can use our knowledge of inevitability to make people behave more morally responsibly by their recognizing that they shouldn’t have retribution for others. Yes, we may still need corrective consequences in order to condition someone toward rehabilitation (such as criminal corrections), but doing so because we are angry at the person and want “justice” is irrational on its own. So inevitability is far from trivial and useless, as we need it in order to change how people behave toward others that have wronged them, and in order to structure society and our justice system in a way that more accurately reflects our lack of ability to have “chosen to do otherwise” given the same situation. This is only going to happen once people STOP ignoring the inevitability aspect of this conversation and instead use it to implement responsible changes in how society is structured to maximize our deterministic/causal knowledge and its impact on a brighter future with less suffering and maximized happiness.

I forgot to make a critical distinction. All benefits of science come from knowing the specific causes of specific effects. Knowing a germ causes a specific illness and that the immune system can be taught to recognize and dispose of that germ by early vaccination is helpful information. It gives us better control of ourselves and our environment.

Likewise, psychology and sociology inform us how early life experiences and subcultures may predispose us toward better or worse personal choices. By understanding specific causes we can design better communities to prevent gang subcultures from gaining footholds. And by understanding these causes we know better how to rehabilitate a person by providing them with education, counseling, and follow-up to allow their release into the community.

But the fact of inevitability itself is useless, because it always come down on both sides of every issue. If we wish to view the criminal’s behavior as “inevitable” then we may also view retribution as its “inevitable” consequence. If inevitability holds the offender blameless, then it also holds society blameless for failing to raise the child well. The only thing that inevitability can naturally defend is the status quo, because it was, after all, inevitable.

The current pop-philosophy idea that we can employ the concept of inevitability to bring about a better world has no real logical foundation.

Social reform has always been driven by individuals who feel personally responsible for how the future turns out. It has not been accomplished by people sitting on their butts waiting to see what inevitability will happen. You cannot inspire this feeling of personal responsibility by attacking the concept of free will and moral responsibility. Instead you defeat it.

“But the fact of inevitability itself is useless, because it always come down on both sides of every issue. If we wish to view the criminal’s behavior as “inevitable” then we may also view retribution as its “inevitable” consequence. If inevitability holds the offender blameless, then it also holds society blameless for failing to raise the child well. The only thing that inevitability can naturally defend is the status quo, because it was, after all, inevitable.”

This is not true. You said so yourself that the benefits of science come from knowing cause-effect relationships and this includes knowing that there are cause-effect relationships to begin with. If we view the criminal as a product of their environment and genes (which most people arguably do not do, but rather view the criminal as an evil doer and/or one who has made bad choices that could have done differently), then the idea of retribution would not follow and thus it wouldn’t be an inevitable consequence. It’s true that with people in a state of ignorance, not knowing that the criminal’s actions were inevitable, their likelihood of implementing retribution would be high (perhaps inevitable). But, that’s the whole point here. By knowing the inevitability of A (the criminal’s choice) given certain conditions that led to it, the inevitability of B (the victim’s wanting retribution) no longer follows. This is why the fact of inevitability (as opposed to the non-existent but intuitive sense of causa sui actions) is useful. By our knowing the inevitability of an event, it changes what the inevitable perspective of that outcome will be and this motivates us to behave differently as a result of that knowledge.

“The current pop-philosophy idea that we can employ the concept of inevitability to bring about a better world has no real logical foundation.”

It does have a foundation and I just explained why in my preceding paragraph. Our knowledge of inevitability with respect to this or that causal chain changes our behaviors as a result of that knowledge. Just as any knowledge is going to likely change our behavior in one way or another, the knowledge of inevitability is no exception. If we don’t have this knowledge, and believe that something isn’t inevitable (less randomness) when it actually is, our choices are not going to be as well informed, and thus our logical reasoning moving forward is going to suffer from ill-founded or incorrect premises. Plain and simple. So the knowledge of inevitability (given certain conditions) matters, such that we can try to change those conditions accordingly (as you seem to agree with, as per your comments about better guidance for preventing early life experiences and subcultures that lead to so many problems down the road).

“Social reform has always been driven by individuals who feel personally responsible for how the future turns out. It has not been accomplished by people sitting on their butts waiting to see what inevitability will happen. You cannot inspire this feeling of personal responsibility by attacking the concept of free will and moral responsibility. Instead you defeat it.”

No, social reform hasn’t always been driven by individuals who feel personally responsible for how the future turns out, or at least that’s not the sole reason driving social reform(and I would argue it isn’t the most fundamental either). What seems most fundamental in driving it is the fact that people want to live in a particular world, and want others to live in that ideal world as well, and so they work hard to change it so that it has a better chance of happening. It’s not always because they feel responsible for how that future turns out, so much as that they simply WANT a particular future and work toward achieving that goal. I agree it hasn’t been accomplished by people sitting on their butts, so we’re in agreement there. But as one should see, even by attacking the fallacious notion of causa sui free will and the aspects or attitudes of moral responsibility that would follow from that fallacious concept (such as treating people badly if we think they acted immorally and deserve it), people still exercise behaviors that ACHIEVE MORAL GOALS, even if they accept that it couldn’t have happened any other way (less randomness). What seems to drive people the most is the underlying (and biologically driven) goal of maximizing personal satisfaction and life fulfillment (which serves our basic psychological/physiological needs), the basic foundation for any moral framework, even if those very same people realized that behaviors necessarily resulted from particular initial conditions (less randomness).

Some people still feel responsible within the illusion of free will that we have, which is fine, because that motivates people to do good as well (which is needed for people that would irrationally give up trying if they simply thought it wasn’t their responsibility, because they failed to realize the points I’ve made here). But they don’t need to feel responsibility to behave a certain way or to drive social reform. Rather, they only have to want to achieve a certain goal and live in a certain kind of world. Analogously, even if I felt that it wasn’t my responsibility to help others cultivate various virtues (such as honesty or compassion), it would benefit me as well as them to help them do so, as reciprocal altruism which benefits everyone in society is far more likely to follow from a society filled with people that aren’t behaving in a nice way just because they feel they have to (i.e. solely a duty) but rather are behaving in a nice way because they actually want to and are naturally inclined to do so (once these virtues have been cultivated). I believe that Aristotle had it right with his virtue ethics in the sense that the cultivation of virtues is the most efficacious way to lead to eudamonia and to maximize it in others. The bottom line is, the best way to determine what one most ought to do (which is morality in a nutshell) is to have the most information at your disposal to rationally determine what will maximize one’s satisfaction and life fulfillment. Having knowledge pertaining to inevitability is a part of that knowledge base, and therefore must be taken into account in order to be the most informed and make the most informed decisions. This goes for the individual as well as how society is generally structured whether in terms of law, criminal corrections, how we raise/condition our children, etc.

There is no question of the effects of both genetics and environment in shaping human behavior. Professionals in psychology, sociology, criminology, and justice are certainly concerned with and knowledgeable of the causes of criminal behavior. And the more we know and understand the causes the more freedom we have to confidently devise effect programs of prevention, correction, and rehabilitation.

The single fact of inevitability, on the other hand, tells us nothing useful, because everything that happens everywhere is inevitable. That’s the reasonable implication of perfectly reliable cause and effect (determinism). And I find it makes things simpler to presume perfect determinism.

Among those more specific and useful causes of criminal behavior is the deliberate choice by some to benefit themselves by committing criminal acts against others. Any attempt to minimize or ignore the significance of this cause is misguided.

The fact that this deliberate choice was inevitable tells us nothing useful in itself. All of the utility is in the specific relevant causes, those that contributed directly to the bad decision — including the reasoning and the emotional factors within the offender that led him to make that bad choice.

The point of penalty is to repair, correct, protect, and do no more than is reasonably required to accomplish this.

Part of the correction may be punitive. It is important to convey to the offender our strong disapproval and that his behavior will not be tolerated. Another part of the correction will be rehabilitative.

I think you may be a bit naïve when you say, “But they don’t need to feel responsibility to behave a certain way or to drive social reform. Rather, they only have to want to achieve a certain goal and live in a certain kind of world.” The difference between wanting and doing is responsibility.

“The single fact of inevitability, on the other hand, tells us nothing useful, because everything that happens everywhere is inevitable. That’s the reasonable implication of perfectly reliable cause and effect (determinism). ”

We’re going around in circles because you’re not acknowledging several points I’ve been trying to communicate to you:

1) that most people don’t accept inevitability of a person’s actions even if they generally accept cause-effect relationships (you and I may accept inevitability, but most people don’t)

2) that most people intuitively think they are self-causing their own behaviors (and thus others must be as well) and they are thus not acknowledging the causal chain leading to the “self” itself and all the behaviors and decisions that follow

3) as a result of this, most people intuitively feel that they are justified in seeking retribution and vengeance toward someone who has wronged them, because they mistakenly identify the cause to be some kind of evil being that is free from the causal constraints that ultimately produced the undesirable behavior.

The main problem is that our intuitions lead to most people having an incomplete concept of inevitability, where it intuitively applies to mechanical physical systems as well as every moment AFTER a choice has been made with respect to conscious systems. But the inevitability of the choice itself and the factors leading up to it are not intuitive and therefore the fact of inevitability is important and useful because it has to be learned and accepted correctly and completely in the first place. Those that believe they are justified in retribution and vengeance do not understand the concept and applicability of inevitability in its entirety.

“Among those more specific and useful causes of criminal behavior is the deliberate choice by some to benefit themselves by committing criminal acts against others. Any attempt to minimize or ignore the significance of this cause is misguided. ”

But the “specific and useful” cause here isn’t a correct interpretation of the overall cause of the criminal’s behavior. The fact that it may be convenient to believe it is the overall cause, because it fits in line with our intuitions, doesn’t make it so. That’s my point here. I don’t believe that this seemingly proximate “convenient” cause should be minimized or ignored, but it should be correctly interpreted for what it really is (which is not an ultimate cause), based on a consistent and complete understanding of the concept of inevitability.

“The point of penalty is to repair, correct, protect, and do no more than is reasonably required to accomplish this….Part of the correction may be punitive. ”

Exactly. And the best way to avoid excessive penalty, is to eliminate irrational retribution and vengeance, which is accomplished in part by a thorough and consistent understanding of inevitability — hence the points made in my dialogue with you.

” I think you may be a bit naïve when you say, “But they don’t need to feel responsibility to behave a certain way or to drive social reform. Rather, they only have to want to achieve a certain goal and live in a certain kind of world.” The difference between wanting and doing is responsibility. ”

Yes and obviously what I mean here is if someone really wants to live in a certain world, they will DO what they need to in order to reach that goal, even if they don’t feel like it is their responsibility per se. This little quibble here may just be a result of our using the word “responsible” or “responsibility” in two different ways and so I think this is less important as we probably are in agreement on this side point.

Lage: 1) that most people don’t accept inevitability of a person’s actions even if they generally accept cause-effect relationships (you and I may accept inevitability, but most people don’t)

In David Eagleman’s “The Brain” series on PBS he points out that “Twenty percent of the calories we consume are used to power the brain. So brains try to operate in the most energy-efficient way possible, and that means processing only the minimum amount of information from our senses that we need to navigate the world.” (Eagleman, David (2015-10-06). The Brain: The Story of You (Kindle Locations 819-821). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

People don’t think about deterministic inevitability because it does them no good to be aware of it. If I’m trying to decide between A or B and you tell me that my choice is inevitable, I would say, “Great, tell me what it is and I can avoid spending energy making this decision!” And then you would say, “Well, I can’t tell you which one is inevitable until you’ve made your decision.” And then I would say, “Then you’ve been more of a nuisance than a help!”

Anyone who sits down to think about deterministic inevitability as a logical result of reliable cause and effect can assert that it is true. But there’s nothing useful you can do with that fact.

Lage: 2) that most people intuitively think they are self-causing their own behaviors (and thus others must be as well) and they are thus not acknowledging the causal chain leading to the “self” itself and all the behaviors and decisions that follow

No one intuitively considers themselves “causes of their own existence”. Everyone adult knows where babies come from. And, again for the sake of efficiency, we do not attempt to track the causes of our actions back to the big bang.

The only causes that are relevant to us are the causes we can do something about next time. And it is only out of our desire to avoid making the same mistake next time that we review what we did last time, to consider what we might have done otherwise.

And that is why we use the phrase, “yes, I could have done this rather than that”. It is not a claim to any magical or supernatural power, but simply how we go over things in our heads to learn from our past experiences how to make better decisions in the future.

Trying to insert the fact of deterministic inevitability into that mental process, by insisting “we could not have done otherwise”, disrupts the operation, making it impossible to learn from our mistakes.

Lage: 3) as a result of this, most people intuitively feel that they are justified in seeking retribution and vengeance …

But how does deterministic inevitability help? If the criminal’s behavior was inevitable, then so is the reaction to it. And if inevitability excuses the criminal, then it also excuses those seeking revenge.

The problem with deterministic inevitability is that it cannot be used to support one side or another of any issue, because it always supports whatever actually happens. It is like a constant that is on both sides of every equation, and it can be subtracted from both sides without affecting the result.

The only causes that are relevant are those we can do something about next time.

Yes, our brains are not wired to intuitively/innately know about the deterministic inevitability of that very brain its processes which is why people have to learn about this in order to make use of said knowledge. But it does do them good to know about it as I’ve already mentioned several times, with my examples about vengeance and retribution. Why you refuse to acknowledge this fact is beyond me as we go around in circles with you not actually acknowledging it.

“Anyone who sits down to think about deterministic inevitability as a logical result of reliable cause and effect can assert that it is true. But there’s nothing useful you can do with that fact.”

Yes, but most people don’t sit down and think about this, nor have they ever (hence my point about what MOST people do and don’t believe). And once again, you are wrong that there’s nothing useful you can do with this fact, as I’ve already pointed out a number of times now. Repeating your original claim isn’t going to make it any more true nor negate the facts I’ve presented here. Inevitability has a use and it’s use is that which results from a more thorough understanding of cause and effect and how it needs to be applied everywhere, even if it goes against our intuitions.

Yes, this is obviously the case and you clearly must have misread what I wrote (once again). I mentioned that most people don’t intuitively consider their actions and behaviors to be caused by something other than their “self” (not realizing that their “self” and all its products are caused by deterministic neurological processes). This has nothing to do with the cause of their existence. I merely was talking about the cause of their actions, thoughts, behaviors, etc., in proximal terms.

“Trying to insert the fact of deterministic inevitability into that mental process, by insisting “we could not have done otherwise”, disrupts the operation, making it impossible to learn from our mistakes.”

Incorrect. Rather it fully informs us to learn better from our mistakes. If I take vengeance out on another person that has wronged me in some way, and then later on I learn about inevitability in its entirety and how it applies to that person’s behaviors as well, then I can learn from my mistakes and no longer take irrational vengeance out on people the next time it occurs. Instead I can simply do what is rationally required to try and correct other’s behaviors as well as my own (with no irrational vengeance or retribution needed).

“But how does deterministic inevitability help? If the criminal’s behavior was inevitable, then so is the reaction to it. And if inevitability excuses the criminal, then it also excuses those seeking revenge.”

I already told you many times now and you obviously aren’t getting the message (which is frustrating to say the least). If the criminal’s behavior was inevitable, the inevitable reaction of the victim will DEPEND on whether the victim knows about the inevitability of the criminal’s actions or not. If the victim DOES know this (as I’ve been arguing, they should come to know), then their inevitable reaction will be rational and better informed. If the victim does NOT know this (which most victim’s and people generally arguably don’t), then their inevitable reaction will be irrational and less informed. What would we prefer in a society, and on what platform should we try and structure society in terms of conditioning, legislation, criminal corrections, etc.? Obviously the latter, since it is the best causally informed position on the matter. It’s as simple as that and it’s far past the time for you to acknowledge that. We can certainly “excuse” a victim’s reaction to a criminal act against them as they have fallen prey to their emotions and intuitions about the ultimate cause of the criminal’s actions. However, once they learn about the inevitability of the criminal’s actions, then they can no longer be excused because of ignorance (because they no longer ARE ignorant about that fact). Instead they can only be excused in so far as they’ve made a mistake in their reasoning by either forgetting this fact or having it overturned by irrational emotions. In any case, we will see less occurrences of the poor reasoning once people learn about inevitability in its entirety.

“The only causes that are relevant are those we can do something about next time.”

Exactly. Thanks again for proving my point for me. Learning about the inevitability of a criminal’s actions (for example) is relevant so a person will be able to know what to do next time that they are victimized — such that they don’t commit irrational acts of vengeance and retribution against that criminal (and instead will be more likely to limit their actions to that which is required to rehabilitate the criminal). Likewise for how the law is set up in correcting criminals. It all comes back to a proper understanding of free will and causation and having this embedded in our legislation and how we raise our children. Without a complete understanding, people make many more mistakes that have a high cost to society and only hinder our happiness moving forward.

I wouldn’t say lack of philosophical bacground is the main problem here. Its ignorance.
In reality, we have no actual knowledge to uspport our understanding of how exactly information in the brain is processed and what part plays in it our consciousness and how it works itself. The truth is WE DONT KNOW. Harris view is nothing more than pure speculation of his subjective interpretation of fmri scans and quite a bit exaggerated idea of free will. There is more to brain activity than “just a chemical process” in the brain, there are reactions going there on subatomic level for fans of physics, even though we say particles act “random” its the same what would we say of another human being without knowing his motives. We have no idea how entangled partice by our still incomplete understanding of quantum physics would react in much larger cooperative groups and from what we’ve learn so far on subatomic level Time isnt the same what we perceive from our classical perspective, there might be even information passed “backwards”. I feel disgust for this kind of ignorance of our own lack of knowledge, but especialy because of the from Harris gives to his assumptions as it was innevitable truth, this kind of attitude is what slows our progress as a species the most, I think. Without deeper knowledge of processes going on in microtubules with a uncountable amounts of entangled partices, we cant claim antyhing about brain activity and what it SEEMS to mean with our limited understanding. So for Harris idea as of now its even less than science fiction.

“Without deeper knowledge of processes going on in microtubules with a uncountable amounts of entangled partices, we cant claim antyhing about brain activity and what it SEEMS to mean with our limited understanding. So for Harris idea as of now its even less than science fiction.”

Obviously you missed Sam Harris’ entire point here. It doesn’t matter WHAT the processes are at the fundamental levels in the brain — for they are all governed by the laws of physics. This means that given the same initial conditions in a situation where we decide or choose to do something, it couldn’t have happened any other way other than through the mechanism of quantum randomness. Neither case gives us free will in the classical sense. So your response to what Sam has claimed is not very well informed for you missed the point entirely. When Sam has mentioned more specifics regarding what we’ve found in brain scans, etc., those are just to show some of the higher level constraints involved in the brain processes. Just because we don’t know all the goings-on in the brain, doesn’t mean we can’t make claims based on the evidence we DO have. That is what Sam has done. He is making claims based on all the evidence we do have regarding the brain, and thus far, it has been shown to be governed by a number of adequately-deterministic biochemical processes. With reasoning like yours, we shouldn’t be able to claim anything about anything at all because we’ll never have 100% certainty or 100% knowledge concerning any phenomenon that science explores. This is simply ridiculous. We can make claims as soon as we have some knowledge about a particular phenomenon. What changes over time is the probability of our claims being true as they gain more empirical support, or they get falsified in which case they are disregarded for a new hypothesis in the hopes of eventually becoming a scientific theory.

The real evidence is the logical evidence against the ability to have, of one’s own accord, done otherwise. The neuroscientific studies point to the causal nature of our thoughts (of course they stem from non-conscious neuro-processes first).

I am always late to the party. There is nothing in “free will” that necessitates control the circumstances in whch a course of actin is chosen or the outcome of thise actions. This ground has been well worn by Muslim philosophers concerned withides of God being all-powerful and just: if peoplemhave absolue freedom to dictate the circumstances and consequences of their actions, then god is not all-powerful. If people have no agency aith regard to their actin, and god punishes them for acts over which they had no control, then god is not just. Muslims solved this problem to their satisfaction, (more or less) by postulating that free will does not encompass circumstances, possible actions in those circumsances or the consequences of thosee actions, but is narrowy defined as aniity to choose a course of action, and the intentin behind that choice.

I asked a Muslim theologian, “free-will or determinism.” He replied, “both.

I don’t think that reading more philosophy is going to solve a problem that philosophers created. Well, maybe reading William James’s “Pragmatism” lecture collections would help, but probably nothing else.

Paradoxes include subtle deceptions to draw you in. Once you fall for it you’re hooked. With determinism versus free will, you have a bait-and-switch. Ordinary freedom is replaced with an imaginary absolute freedom, and all of a sudden your freedom disappears!

Cute trick, but just a trick. There are at least three impossible freedoms: freedom from causation, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Because these can only exist in our imagination, the word “free” can never imply any one of them in any practical context. Since it can’t, we should assume that it doesn’t.

The will cannot be free from causation, because the will requires reliable cause and effect (determinism) to implement any intent.

The will cannot be free from oneself, because…well, then it is someone else’s will and not our own.

The will cannot be free from reality, because then it becomes only a wish, the stuff of dreams.

So what can the will be free from? Luckily, in order to be meaningful, the word “free” need only refer to a single constraint. In the case of free will, the free means free of any coercion to choose or act against our will. If our will is subordinate to or subjugated by the will of someone else, then it is not free.

And that’s actually what people normally assume free will to be. For example, when one of the Boston Marathon bombers hijacked a car and forced the driver to aid his escape, the driver was guiltless, because he was not acting of his own free will. The concept of free will is also embedded in the definition of words like “voluntary” and “autonomy”.

There is no suggestion of any escape from causation, or from oneself, or from reality in this ordinary, everyday free will.

Things only get bungled and confused in the hands of the philosophers and theologians. And this is because they are not speaking clearly. Their debate is not really about free will, but about the possibility of freedom from causation. And they should start calling it that!

Leave free will to us ordinary people who already know intuitively that (a) freedom is impossible without reliable cause and effect and (b) it is actually us who, in physical reality, are making decisions for ourselves.

For the philosophers and scientists out there, let’s be clear that every decision we make of our own free will is also inevitable, but of those two facts, autonomy and inevitability, only one has any practical relevance in the real world.

Yet an other demonstration that “philosophy” can cloud your rationnality so much as refusing to see evidence.
The vision of free will as defined and attacked by Sam Harris is obviously the one most of us intuitively share. That we are the masters of our own actions in a very practical sense. Redefining the premices, saying they are naive, without any good reason to do so is symptomatic of the sophism and wishful thinking we usually see in old school philosopical debate.
The thesis here is not that there cannot be a working definition of free will but that free will in it’s most commonly accepted sense is an illusion. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Redefining the question is just intellectually dishonnest.

@Yoann Gouon: “The vision of free will as defined and attacked by Sam Harris is obviously the one most of us intuitively share.”

It’s actually not. Experimental philosophy has shown that most people agree with Compatibilism’s moral reasoning. Since the whole concept of “free will” is used only to legitimize moral reasoning, our intuitive understanding of free will is not incompatibilist.

@Yoann Gouon: “The thesis here is not that there cannot be a working definition of free will but that free will in it’s most commonly accepted sense is an illusion. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Redefining the question is just intellectually dishonnest.”

Except the intuitive meaning is being redefined by you, Harris and other incompatibilists. You see, the very first formal conceptions of free choice were first laid down in laws, like the Code of Hammurabi. In Western law, a free choice for which we are responsible consists in being capable of understanding our choice, of not being coerced to make that choice and so deliberately making that choice.

And this is precisely the moral reasoning most everyone employs, which is precisely the sort of moral reasoning in Compatibilism, and so it’s far from illusory. The fact that said choice might have been somehow “destined” is irrelevant to this question.

I read the NYT op-ed, all I found was a philosopher who confuses the discussion by redefining free will to mean something like a part of your brain that goes through some critical examination process before a decision is made.

This has nothing to do with the general perception of free will, as being a truly independent process that allows one to choose what to do. So long as that same examination process is determined by external stimuli, then the whole thing is just a silly wordgame. In theory, if you clamp down on the external variables that determine how your brain goes through its ‘reasoning’ processes, then those reasoning processes will occur in the exact same way every time. That is to say, the whole reasoning process is just some automatic process in which there is no true freedom, which is to say that we have no real free will in the decisions we make.

Every time I hear the compatibilist position, it is always just word games like this. If these are really the “aguments” philosophers are asking scientists to consider then I understand why most people skip these arguments. They aren’t really arguments, they are word games. At the end of the day, the compatibilist position is still determinist for the reasons I outlined in the previous paragraph.

To have a genuine free will you actually need something which is not completely deternimed by some series of processes and variables external to the mind, which affect how our neurons fire. This free will would need to be both of the world but not dependent on it, which implies something beyond physicality and the science we know.

The reason why you don’t need to study philosophy is because this is a trivially obvious statement. If you want to obfuscate the issue, then feel free to read articles like what was posted in the NYT. Then you can pretend that a completely determined process is a perfectly admissible example of “free will” (though really, its not).

And what’s with all of these appeals to what the people commonly think? Most people are not philosophers and are ill-equipped to form cogent opinions on the validity of compatibalism (there is no validity)

Do you have evidence that justifies the claim that the process of making a decision is COMPLETELY DETERMINED? I’ve been researching this topic for 5 years and I have yet to see a knock-down argument for the claim that our decisions and choices are determined by forces outside our control.

> In theory, if you clamp down on the external variables that determine how your brain goes through its ‘reasoning’ processes, then those reasoning processes will occur in the exact same way every time.

Probably true.

> That is to say, the whole reasoning process is just some automatic process in which there is no true freedom, which is to say that we have no real free will in the decisions we make.

Your mistake is simply assuming that the freedom needed for free will must be non-deterministic. Prove it. And keep in mind that the free will debated here is NOT the same type of free will that physicists talk about regarding freedom to decide experimental parameters (despite conflating the concept). I suspect you think “free will” discussed here refers to this ability to choose free from antecedant causes, but it’s not.

If you think they must be the same, then like I said, prove it.

> And what’s with all of these appeals to what the people commonly think? Most people are not philosophers and are ill-equipped to form cogent opinions on the validity of compatibalism (there is no validity)

And the fact that you don’t understand the relevance of intuitions or the utility of common knowledge in philosophical debate shows that you are ill-equipped to judge the validity of Compatibilism or any other philosophical argument.

I’ll break it down for you:

1. Free will is a property of an agent’s choice such that the agent can be held morally responsible for said choice.
2. Most philosophers maintain that for an agent to be held morally responsible for its choices, the agent must exhibit some sort of intent to make that choice, and further that said agent must have some element of freedom to choose among alternatives. Hence the term “free will”. If some entity has no choice, or no ability to form an intention, then most would say that it cannot have free will, and thus cannot be held morally responsible.
3. If your choice is non-deterministic, then it’s free but seems logically random, and cannot be said to be an expression of will or have any kind of intent.
4. If your choice is deterministic, then it’s driven by your intent formed by reasons, but seems to be non-free in some fundamental way.

So the goal is to reconcile some notion of freedom and some notion of will to define a coherent and useful definition of free will which entails moral responsibility.

There are two main positions on how determinism impacts the freedom of free will: incompatibilism holds that any predetermined choices are necessarily non-free in a way that negates the possibility of moral responsibility. This has yet to be proven to everyone’s satisfaction.

Compatibilism holds that determinism has no implications for the freedom of a choice in a way that negates moral responsibility. The type of freedom demanded of free will is simply agnostic to whether a choice is deterministic or non-deterministic. This too has yet to be proven to everyone’s satisfaction.

This yields three main positions on the nature of free will:

1. Incompatibilist hard determinists: we have deterministic brains and no free will, and so no moral responsibility for our choices.
2. Incompatibilist libertarian: we have non-deterministic brains and free will, and so we are responsible for our choices.
3. Compatibilism: determinism is irrelevant, so we have free will and are responsible for our choices.

When a subject is uncertain, we fall back on intuitions to derive thought experiments that test the boundaries of what we think we know, and over the centuries of debate, there have been many compelling arguments implying that determinism isn’t really relevant to moral responsibility (like the Frankfurt cases).

There have also been few truly compelling arguments addressing how indeterminism completely negates the will needed for moral responsibility. Which is why most philosophers are Compatibilists (~60%), less than 15% are libertarian, and less than 13% are hard determinists.

The type of freedom in Compatibilism is basically a freedom from coercion by other agents. Anytime your choice is made for your own reasons, and not overridden by another’s reasons, your choice was freely made and you can be held responsible for that choice. This is basically the same concept of free choice as found in law: the law cares only whether you made that a choice freely or under duress. If under duress, you’re not culpable, otherwise you are.

And this is precisely how most people morally reason as well. When presented with various moral dilemmas, experimental philosophy has shown that people reason like Compatibilism would say they should. Which means the most common understanding of what it means to have free will is the Compatibilist position.

This is important is because many people, like yourself, charge Compatibilism with playing word games and redefining “free will” and think incompatibilism is and has always been the most widely understood meaning of free will, but the data clearly disproves that assertion.

You yourself claimed that people consider choice to be an independent process from the brain, and while that may be true if you asked them flat out, when given an actual test to think through and assign moral responsibility, they turn out to be Compatibilists, not incompabilists.

I agree 100% with Sam Harris that yes, free will is definitely an illusion. All of our thoughts result from neurons behaving the way they do and we don’t choose the way our neurons behave. This is why we cannot choose what we like or who we like. I fell in love with my wife the moment I met her because of how my neurons behaved when I first saw her.

Frank: “All of our thoughts result from neurons behaving the way they do and we don’t choose the way our neurons behave. This is why we cannot choose what we like or who we like.”

And you are the sum total of your neurons. And even if you can’t choose what to like or dislike, you can still “choose” whether or not to satisfy your likes. In other words, you make choices in accordance with your nature, but to also have a choice in your nature is circular and ill-defined.

This unfortunately common objection to free will rests on a deep misunderstanding. For instance, your neurons don’t have jobs, and can’t own cars, and yet you can have a job and own a car.

In the same way that this “ownership” relation manifests at the level of agents, and not the constituents of those agents, so too does free will manifest at the level of agents. Free will is a relation between agents, and the composition of and forces driving those agents is entirely irrelevant.

I think Frank’s comments are pointing out the lack of libertarian free will that most people think they have (to be able to have behaved differently given the same initial conditions, less randomness). This kind of free will is an illusion for the reasons Frank mentioned, not just at the level of neurons but at any physical level with particles responding to fields in a way that is either deterministic or fundamentally random, or at the higher level where effectively “programmed” human beings perform macroscopic behaviors based on contingent environmental inputs — both of which negate liberterian free will by the very nature of their intrinsic causal structure. The free will that you are referring to in response to Frank is the compatibalist version of “free will” which just asserts that we have an information processing complexity that is high enough to allow us to accomplish goals and behave in ways that have a complex information processing causal chain. This allows us to distinguish our decision making capacity and complexity from, say, someone that has a brain tumor causing them to commit violence or behave more impulsively than an average human being, or even to distinguish our capacities of decision making complexity from that of other animals like chimps, or dogs, or fish. You are using the term “free will” to describe this difference in decision making complexity, but that does nothing to rescue libertarian free will so it is a red herring in regard to Frank’s point (based on my inference of Frank’s position anyway) and in regard to Sam Harris’ point and his use of the term “free will”. Since Frank was responding to Sam’s position, you can’t just slip in your conception of free will and negate that which Sam is using, as that misses the point entirely. Having said all this, it is important that we understand that we do have capacities for decision making resulting from the brain’s underlying information processing complexity that are distinct from abnormal brains, and the brains of other animals, which have varying degrees of freedom, but that’s irrelevant to the point that Sam has made and which Frank has responded to.

It’s this phrase that’s the problem. Specifically, this phrase in English. English grammar doesn’t distinguish between modal-perfect and perfect-modal. If there is fundamental randomness (which there’s no good physical argument against), then it is indeed possible that the same initial conditions could lead to a different response. It’s not, of course, possible to go back in time and change that response. But the ambiguity of English verb phrases makes it easy to conflate these two very different claims.

I agree the phrase can be a little ambiguous. But either way, as I’ve said earlier, randomness doesn’t rescue the classical form of causa sui free will anyway, so it is irrelevant. Determinism and randomness both result in cases where one couldn’t have behaved differently of their own accord. Just as it wouldn’t be accurate to say that I’ve freely chosen the outcome of a rolled die, likewise for any actions ultimately mediated by an ontological randomness (through quantum mechanics for example).

Though unrelated to free will, I disagree with your claim that “there’s no good physical argument against” randomness. While quantum mechanics precludes us from knowing whether or not the underlying reality in our universe is fundamentally random or deterministic (both interpretations are valid under QM), relativity theory does support determinism over randomness, since different frames of reference give some observers knowledge of events that haven’t yet occurred for observers in other frames of reference, implying that the future event for the latter type of observer was indeed already determined. Taken to the extreme, as per Paul Davies and others, infinite time dilation for photons implies that a photon’s future path is already determined before it gets there (from our perspective) since that path contracts in length down to zero from the photon’s frame of reference. So until relativity is refuted (so far it has only been supported empirically), and not just shown that it must be combined or reconciled with with QM through some theory of quantum gravity that encompasses both, possibly resulting from future success in string theory or loop quantum gravity, we must accept that there is at least one strong scientific argument for determinism. When we combine this support with the fact that deterministic interpretations of QM are as valid as those that are indeterministic, it shows that determinism is most likely correct (given our current information, even if this changed in the future). It’s the best guess we have when both quantum mechanics and relativity are taken into account. Anyway, I know this is a physics tangent unrelated to free will but since you brought it up I wanted to respond to that point too.

[…] Justin – I’m interested in the kind of moral responsibility that we need to have free will. My intuition suggests to me that a sense of moral responsibility which ascribes praise and blame is all well and good so long as the blame and the praise are directed at rehabilitating the content of the thought as opposed to rehabilitating the bearer of the thought. […]